I'm limiting to exclusives, because that's what differentiates them. I understand that the overall quality of a library is determined by all of the games available, but shouldn't the games that are common between two different libraries contribute equally to the quality of those libraries?
That's true, but your list of titles seems very small. What about download titles? What about PS4 exclusives that are on PC?
But the top exclusive saleswise on the PS4 sold approximately as well as three different exclusives did on the XBOne and the only other one sold (relatively) poorly.
What if those shoppers bought other games instead? Why is buying other games than the top exclusives not counting towards 'best library' which surely is 'offering games I want to buy'?
I having trouble reconciling that the PS4's *current* library was evaluated as better than the XBOne's when the two libraries are largely the same...
I don't think they are, but it's hard to pin that info down.
and for the titles that are different, consumers have shown no exceptional affinity for any of those unique titles on the PS4 when it came time to vote with their wallets.
That's a common misconception in interpreting detail. Just because a title doesn't appeal to the masses, doesn't mean it isn't important to one person, who can vote for that platform based on that one title. PS2 had plenty of important titles fleshing out the library that weren't big sellers, but for the gaming connoisseur, those games were what game the machine its stellar library. this argument comes up repeatedly when talking about how important platform exclusives are. Some point to the top selling games on PS and say they are all 3rd party titles, so the exclusives don't matter. But those exclusives that sell just 1 or 2 million, a small proportion of the market, are the titles that swung a purchase in favour of PS over something else that has the same 3rd party library.
I don't think reviews are objective. Not at all.
No personal opinion is, but a mathematical average of a large sample base will give a general overview of how people on average feel about a title. As the question was 'best library,' the result can't be objective, except by accepting a subjective standard by which the data can be objectively measured.
Best Library = best selling AAA exclusives
No, Best Library = greatest number of games
No, Best Library = greatest number of games with a Metacritic of 70 or greater
No, Best Library = highest number of games released a month
Lots of ways to come up with an objective measure, all of which are subjective.
Of course there are. Confirmation bias guarantees it. As it would for anyone who has invested in any platform. Individual opinions are meaningless. Unscientific polls (like this one) are better, but still flawed.
Yep. So really don't see that much point in arguing about a poll.
That's the thing, though, you can explain nuanced and subjective behavior amongst individuals and small groups, but in the aggregate these tend to get smoothed out.
In which case, you'd have to think the data was the actual consensus. It could be a case of 40% each voted PS4 or XB1 based on the machine they owned, and the remaining 20% voted on fringe titles that most people don't care about, but which was enough to shift the scores 59 : 41.