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Here are the two
Nintendo handhelds, now with the platform identified on each graph:
The relatively
small number of games rated M (for "Mature") clearly
identifies the two Nintendo platforms. The distinguishing feature
between the two is the rating category E10+, which wasn't created
until 2005, far into the life of the Game Boy Advance. Since the E10+
rating has existed for nearly the entire lifetime of the Nintendo DS,
more of its games have received that rating.
If one considers
the E and E10+ ratings as approximately the same, then the two
Nintendo handhelds exhibit very similar ratings distributions. Fewer
than 1% of the games for either platform were rated M and
approximately 10% received a rating of T (for "Teen"). The
rest were either E or E10+.
Now, here is the
PlayStation Portable's distribution:
From the
beginning Sony has aimed the PSP at an older demographic, and the
ESRB ratings of its games reflect that strategy. Almost 9% of its
games are rated M and nearly 35% are rated T.
Last Generation -- PS2, GameCube, and Xbox
I found some
interesting comparisons in the last generation of consoles: the Sony
PlayStation 2, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Microsoft Xbox. As
before, take a minute to examine the graphs sans labels (again in
random order) and try to reason which graph belongs to which platform
from just the rating distributions.
The answers are
given on the next page.
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Can you update the article to include PC?
Awesome article. It's nice to see the rating system. The only thing that Microsoft needs to get is the retailer associates who feel the 360 is "The FPS" machine. I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown of genres for each system.
Thanks a lot.