Take a Deep Breadth

While exclusive titles may figure heavily into a consumer's console purchase, that same consumer will probably also want to play a wide variety of popular games. When looking at these top 100 selling games of the past year, which console provides access to the lion's share of games?

The answer should be no surprise:

The Xbox 360 can play more than a majority of the games listed in our top 100 software rankings. Right behind it, with 52 games and its own majority, is the Wii. The PlayStation 2 is further behind at 46 and the PlayStation 3 even further back with 44.

To return briefly to the subject of exclusives, the Wii's 52 games include 12 games which are exclusive to the platform. On the other hand, Microsoft's 54 games include only 3 games which are exclusives.

We can look at this two ways. On the one hand, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has attracted a broad spectrum of cross-platform software (and the Xbox 360 version is often superior to the other platforms) but has few top-selling exclusive titles. Nintendo's Wii has fewer cross-platform games (and the Wii version is sometimes considered “just a port of the PS2 version”) but has a larger selection of system exclusives to spice up its library.

For sheer value, however, it's hard to pass up the PlayStation 2. Provided you can live with low-def graphics, the $130 price is right and not only does it play many of the top-selling games from the last year but in fact most of the top-selling games from the past seven years.