Sony has claimed that the game sales performance gap between PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 software isn’t as large as one may perceive, with the company boasting of a higher per title attach rate for multiplatform games.
To illustrate these findings, the company provided examples in the form of sales statistics for various blockbuster software releases, including Street Fighter IV and Grand Theft Auto IV.
"If you factor in Xbox 360’s longer time in the marketplace and larger install base, Xbox 360 should be selling twice as many software units as PS3 if attach rates were equal — and that is just not what we are seeing at retail with many multiplatform titles," the firm told Gamasutra.
Examples of software performance are as follows:
-As of March 2009, the Xbox 360 version of Street Fighter IV has only outsold its PS3 counterpart by 44,000 units, equating to a PS3 attach rate of 5.5 per cent. In comparison, the Xbox 360 attach rate for the title rests at 3.1 per cent.
-The PS3 version of Tomb Raider: Underworld has outsold the Xbox 360 release in North America since its release last November (136,245 and 108,784 units each, respectively)
-Prince of Persia has sold more on the Xbox 360 in comparison to PS3, albeit only by 36,000 units.
-The PS3 version of GTA IV boasts an attach rate of 26.9 per cent, while the Xbox 360 version rests at 23 per cent. Despite this, the game has sold 3.36 million on Microsoft’s console compared to 1.96 million units for PS3.