Attach ratios for Wii, 360 & PS3 revealed

Gamasutra have taken the time to calculate the attach rate, or tie ratios, which in less-fancy-speak means “”the number of games sold per console”” for both first and third party titles on Wii, PS3 and 360.””A console’s software tie ratio is the ratio of the total number of software unit sales to the total number of hardware unit sales. This gives an average number of software titles per platform owner. More inside Recently Anita Frazier, analyst for the NPD Group, has commented that tie ratios “”can be an indication of the health of a system””, but can also be used in misleading ways.”” Explains Gamasutra’s Matt Matthews.

“”Moreover, “”as a system gets further along in its lifecycle and perhaps hardware sales start to diminish, the tie ratio tends to go up because software sales are the bigger draw. If a hardware system is doing gangbuster sales, then the tie ratio can go down even if there are lots of overall sales.””

The Wii has the highest first party rate, but overall, the third party rate is higher. Does this mean that the old “”people only buy Nintendo games on a Nintendo console”” myth is busted? Perhaps! If this graph is to be believed, Wii owners (on average, of course) own approximately 2 first party Wii games, and 3 third party Wii games. So, the average Wii owner has about 5 games for their console.

Rest of the charts can be found at the full article;