Myth: Games Sell More on Xbox Than on PS3 (Updated with latest results)

by Sohrab Osati | Jan 2, 2011 | 43 comments
Sohrab Osati


It shouldn’t be news to anybody that the Xbox 360 is ahead of the Playstation 3 when it comes to units sold. Not only did the Xbox launch a full year ahead of the PS3, but Sony had a rocky 2-3 years before they got their game plan together. Another advantage that the Xbox 360 has enjoyed is its lower price point, now offering a very stripped down version for $150 vs. the $299 PS3. This puts the Xbox 360 at 44.2 million units sold worldwide with the PS3 coming in at 40.3 million. Now there is some discrepancy with the Xbox 360 sales where it’s been widely reported that the systems have suffered upwards of 30% failure rate. This has even caused game retailer giant Gamestop to stop offering warranties on them. But the flip side is that there are PS3 owners who have simply purchased the console for its Blu-ray player, streaming and other media features for their home theater and are not using the unit for gaming purpose. So with the two different situations effecting the number of active consoles that are dedicated to gaming, let’s assume that the number difference between the two consoles is correct. Does this then mean that the 360 really sells more games than the PS3? The answer may be a bit surprising.

The Xbox 360 is shooter heaven where its users flock on the first day to games like Halo, Call of Duty and Gears of War. Sure, the PS3 has Call of Duty and its own exclusives series like Killzone, Socom and Resistance, but when it comes to sales, a game like Gears of War 2 does 1.9 million on first week worldwide where other AAA and highly rated PS3 game like Uncharted 2 do only 800,000. Sure Uncharted 2 now has 3.8 million sales, but Gears of War 2 is sitting on a cool 5.9 million. So we can all agree that 360 users buy their FPS (first person shooter) games in droves, but how do other games that are not FPS and released on both consoles average in sales? The results seem to be much different.

  • Beyonata PS3 (0.74 million)
  • Beyonata 360 (0.67 million)
  • James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game PS3 (0.58 million)
  • James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game 360 (0.56 million)
  • Lost Planet 2  PS3 (0.52 million)
  • Lost Planet 2  360 (0.44 million)
  • Mafia II PS3 (0.46 million)
  • Mafia II 360 (0.46 million)
  • Resident Evil 5 PS3 (3.39 million)
  • Resident Evil 5 360 (2.82 million)
  • FIFA Soccer 10 PS3 (3.54 million)
  • FIFA Soccer 10 PS2 (1.27 million)
  • FIFA Soccer 10 PSP (0.76 million)
  • FIFA Soccer 10 360 (2.68 million)
  • Just Cause 2 PS3 (0.78 million)
  • Just Cause 2 360 (0.70 million)

The above numbers are games that the PS3 has outsold its 360 version, and that does not mean that there are not other dual-release games with which the 360 has outsold the PS3. But, we can take away from this that even with its lower install base, Playstation owners seem to play a wider variety of games and publishers indeed are able to sell more titles to them while 360 owners only show up in masses  for FPS games. Another advantage that Sony offers to publishers is their multi console offering where sport games are not released just on the PS3, but the PS2 and PSP as well (above example is FIFA ’10). This means that despite the stigma out there, Sony’s Playstation platform continues to offer the most compelling platform for publishers to release games on.

[Via VGChartz]