The video games industry has evolved greatly over the last twenty to thirty years. A wide range of games based on movies, as well as many other titles, have been released to players' great satisfaction.

I found it quite interesting to explore the market, given that the way games are consumed has changed so much. Indeed, it has evolved from classic computer games to the point where the best players can broadcast their games live and build their communities.

Fortunately, I found a corresponding dataset containing all the games sold in quantities of 100,000 or more between 1985 and 2020.

Reliving the Console Wars: PS3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Wii

One of the first things that come to my mind is comparing the results of games released on the PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii platforms. Why? Because these three platforms dominated the market when I was a junior high school student. My friends and I argued a lot about which was the best platform.

Another reason is that this generation of consoles is no longer sold by the company without these platforms. They are not too old to be irrelevant for analysis.

Let's see who had the best score. First, I cleaned the gathered data to get the number of units sold for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii.

All platforms performed similarly, they all have approximately the same result. In detail, the Xbox 360 has 1265 games, the Wii comes second 1325 games while the PlayStation 3 is slightly higher with 1329 games.

Not All Exclusives Are Equal: The Hidden Boost of Bundled Games

To get a clearer picture of what resonated most with players, I examined the best-selling games for each platform — the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii.

Comparing the top titles across these consoles makes it easier to understand not just which system sold the most units, but also which games captured gamers' imaginations during that era.

Without a doubt, we can clearly see that the Wii has the best score with Wii Sports, despite its release being seven years before GTA V, which gave it a significant advantage. 

Another reason might be the fact that Wii Sports and is a game dressed for all types of audience while GTA V was rated PEGI 18 which is the highest age rating given by the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system. It indicates that a video game is suitable only for adults (18 years and older) due to intense violence, strong language, sexual content, gambling, or drug use.

The curious fact about Wii Sports and Kinect Adventures is that they are both exclusive console games, whereas GTA V was available on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox platforms.

It is reasonable to assume that the exclusive PS3 games did not perform at the same level as Wii Sports and Kinect Adventures. This may be because these games were not included with the console.

Assessing Console Success Through Average Game Sales

Finally, I found analysing the results and determining which console sold the most games on average fascinating. To do so, I calculated the average number of units sold for each platform, enabling a fair comparison across their respective lifespans.

Surprisingly, the Xbox 360 performed the best out of these three consoles in terms of average annual game sales. However, the Wii holds the record for the best-selling game of all time — Wii Sports — which significantly boosted its overall numbers.

This illustrates the difference between consistent performance across a range of games and the effect of one hugely popular title.