Magento - Link attributes with sub-categories or include attribute value in navigation

I'm creating a video game ecommerce store and I need to have the navigation structured so that the navigation bar contains all the major consoles. When someone hovers over one of the console nav开发者_StackOverflow社区igation links, a drop down menu appears with each genre option. For example, once you hover over Xbox 360, a drop down menu with Action, Adventure, etc. will show up.

My first thought is to create sub-categories in each major category that represent each genre. There would also be a custom attribute field for genre. I would then have to manually export the product database and fill it in for each product.

Is there an easier way to do this that I don't know about? Is it possible to have attributes as the drop-down menu links in the navigation bar?

One thing I've noticed in the Manage Attributes section is the option to Use in Layered Navigation. As far as I can tell, this links the attribute in the sidebar and not the main navigation bar.

For reference, my website is at http://allyourga.me

There is no default functionality to do what you are describing. The default Magento way to accomplish this is via subcategories. You are correct about Layered Navigation, that is a sidebar feature inside the catalog.

You could do some custom coding around showing the attributes in the dropdown menu, but the dropdown links lead to categories anyway, so you'd need to create those regardless. Another approach would be a cronjob that created the necessary categories for the products and placed them into those categories on command. You'll need to add a "console" attribute to make this work as well.

Hope that helps!

Thanks, Joe