Nintendo Places In "Top 10" Of Metacritic's 14th Annual Game Publisher Rankings

Sales and user reviews do not count? Sales at least should be relevant. As for user reviews, I've noticed high levels of toxicity in the user reviews over there, so I've got nothing to say.

Did you play Tears of the Kingdom or any of these other games mentioned?

Come on, surely there is a more engaging question to ask here XD

First question: I can't really compare since I didn't play all the games mentioned. Just a bit curious about Sega ending up in the Top 10 as I mostly hear negative feedback about some of their releases.

Mario wonder was better than totk in my opinion. Still loved totk

I don't care with Metacritic scores.
For me, Everybody 1-2-Switch was my 2023 GOTY.
This is my choice.

oh yeh TotK taking the W

@LUIGE I agree both were great but I definitely find myself going to Wonder more than Zelda. I spent like 400+ hours over a few playthrough of BOTW so ToTK sometimes feels a little too samie. Or at least doesn't draw me back quite like a "new" place to explore like Mario wonder has.

Bethesda in 8th and EA in 16th. Frauds.

Also, RTDLD, Pikmin 4, and Mario Wonder were all better than TOTK. I don't care if RTDLD was a rerelease, it was still better.

@batmanbud2 RTDLD?

@Quarth Return to Dreamland Deluxe. Best Kirby game in Switch. You cannot convince me otherwise.

Ok, so Capcom first and Nintendo second. I'll take that, the companies in between have indie catalogues, so don't really count. I'm not saying there aren't great indie games, there are a number I love, but the majority of them are massively overrated by almost all review sites. A AAA game has to be literally be one of the greatest games of all time to make 9-10 scores, where as indie games get 10's for having a sometimes basic premise with a repetitive catchy gameplay hook. Dead Cells, Vampire Warriors, Hades and a few others are definitely worthy of 9's, but the amount I have seen with 9-10's, then went out and bought them, only to be bored after an hour, is easily between 20-30. Clearly the tactic of supporting indie studios works.

With 8 games bought last year (if not even more), Nintendo is clearly my number one.

@batmanbud2 pikmin 4 and mario wonder were great games but no where near better then totk.

@somnambulance with Mario Strikers Battle League and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet? Unfortunately, no.

@RiasGremory linear > open world. The only open world games that worked for me were Odyssey, Forza Horizon 5, and Bowsers Fury. Everything else can go home. I'm honestly glad they didn't do that with Forgotten Land.

@Lightsiyd I believe they are looking at critic reviews, so they are not going to use sales figures. A lot of sales figures are not publicly known so it would be unfair to include that, especially for smaller studios that don't have as much.

@link12684 That's for clarifying that point. It's enlightening.

@FishyS
Let's see:
In terms of strictly new games published by Nintendo, there was Fire Emblem: Engage, Bayonetta Origins, Pikmin 4, Everybody! 1-2-Switch, Detective Pikachu Returns, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, WarioWare: Move It!.

Remakes and remasters:
Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe, Metroid Prime Remastered, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, Pikmin 1+2, Super Mario RPG.

There was also the DLC of Pokémon Scarlet/Violet and Splatoon 3. Does F-Zero 99 count? Am I missing something?

As for myself, the only 2023 Nintendo games I got were Metroid Prime Remastered and Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe. Both of which are games that were already in my collection in their original versions, but I enjoyed them as if it were the first time I played them and I regret nothing.

Planning to eventually get Mario Wonder, WarioWare, Mario RPG and Everybody! 1-2-Switch (yes, really, for the price the physical version is currently going for in my area, I miss nothing by adding this to my collection).

@Anti-Matter
Funny enough, Everybody 1-2 Switch and its 54 Metacritic score is the main reason why Nintendo didn't rank higher in the chart.

No mention for baldurs gate 3. But Totk was game of the year for me.

"Top 10 game publishers"

.. I'm struggling to think of more than 10 big publishers, nowadays, if I'm honest.

@batmanbud2 Gotcha! Didn't recognise the abbreviation.

2020s Capcom is like 2000s Tom Brady they both wake up and pee excellence.

@LUIGE Wonder was great, but TOTK is easily the best game I've ever played

@bones TOTK shouldn't won GOTY if I'm being honest. It's the best I've ever played, hands down. Played Zelda since ALTTP.

@RiasGremory metacritic is trash. TOTK got review bombed by hyper nostalgic fans.

TOTK is in fact probably the best game of all time, no exaggeration.

TOTK is GOATed completely and the truest video game ever made... That is all I can tell you.

Weird to base anything on metacritic. A bizarre experiment in smashing together incompatible ratings scales with temperamental petty fans, and pretending the result is anything approaching objective fact. But whatever, totk is likely to be my favorite 3D Zelda.

@batmanbud2 literally no one refers to Kirby as RTDLD, what are you on over there?

Why is everyone dumping on Metacritic? And what maniacs actually go there for the user reviews? I’m only interested in the opinions of people that can actually string a coherent sentence together.

@PessitheMystic because the people don’t always give an accurate appraisal.

Like people will be like “Zelda totk is averaging 9.3? I only think it’s a 7.”

But instead of giving the game a 7, they give a 0 to bring the average score down.

So you get less of a picture of what the game is actually like. You might get a picture that parts of the community might be Mad about something, but sometime the reason might be something that isn’t even the games fault, like “someone working with this publisher who had nothing to do with the guys who developed the actual game has been accused of doing a naughty, give the game a zero!”

That sorta thing. Metacritic can be a good guide under normal circumstances, but any hint of drama and it can fly out the window

@somnambulance oh, oops. Thought you were talking about 2022 for some reason. Sorry about that.

@PessitheMystic no, I've seen the abbreviation being used for Return to Dreamland Deluxe. I'm not the only one.

How is Larian Studios not in there? Did they release anything other than Baldur's Gate 3? If not, their average score was a 97. Does this metric have a minimum number of games released? Otherwise it will always favor artsy indies like Supergiant or Team Cherry.

@Alpha008 like I said, I don’t want to read reviews of entitled internet crybabies, essentially. The kind of people that would review bomb something because they changed a voice actor or something, as opposed to evaluating the game on its own merit.

@Yalloo Sega publishes Atlus games and others. I'm guessing that has something to do with it.

@Thomystic the Divinity series before Original Sin received pretty mixed reviews. I think Divine Divinity is one of the best CRPGs ever made, but I doubt many people agree with that. Also Divinity 2 Director's Cut is pretty awesome...to both of us that played it, lol

If I were to score this, I would have a point system for:
"Good" games (80-84)
"Great" games (85-89)
"Games of the Year" (90-94)
"All-Time Classics" (95-100)

And ignore the "meh" and the stinkers.
I would also eliminate re-issues, remasters and remakes.

Best publisher in the history of these annual overviews is Microsoft.

@LikelySatan yes, thanks! Their games are pretty popular and well praised indeed. That explains it.

@LikelySatan These rankings only factor in the previous year though.

@somnambulance cool. I should also mention Splatoon 3. Love that game so much.

Not that I really care, but this methodology is dumb. Number 2, 3, and 4 are publishers who only put out a handful of titles, but they all scored "good" (not even "great"), so they got top spots. Imo Nintendo should be higher than Capcom, Nintendo had both more "good" (16 vs 9) and "great" (4 vs 3) titles, but the average brought them down, meaning they would have won if they didn't release as many games, how does releasing fewer games make a publisher better?

@mcslurf Yeah, they guy who first wrote it explained it, but thanks anyway.