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Predicting Launch Title Review Scores
Next Generation is hosting an article attempting to prognosticate the spread of review scores for the PS3 and Wii. Author Matt Matthews does this by examining historical precedents for previous system launches. From the article: "Next month Sony's PlayStation 3 will launch with only two games which will get an average review score of 90% or better. On the other hand, Nintendo's Wii will have three games which will average scores of 90% or better. And it is almost certain that each of those consoles will launch with two absolute stinkers, games which consistently score below 60%... How can we know this? Because history tells us that this is what happens with console launch titles." For even more analysis of the data, Matthews has additional charts on curmudgeon gamer.
What is really stupid about this is that their methodology is probably as accurate as doing preview scores for every game ...
Basically, most Game Review scores are less about the actually quality of a game and is far more about how it compares to other games on the same platform; the reality is that their estimate of 10% of games will recieve a 90% or higher score could be easily interpreted as "1 in 10 games will be dramatically better than the competition to the extent that it will justify a score of 90% or higher".
Personally, I believe that the average-average score is probably more telling of the quality of a launch because the average score of the average game will probably be effected more by how it compares to games on other platforms; for example, many PS2 launch games looked as bad as playstation games and were probably butchered in their reviews for not looking as good as they could.