Nintendo, Ubisoft, and EA Top Metacritic’s list of Best Game Publishers for 2014

Metacritic has crunched all of the numbers and put together a list of top game publishers of 2014. This list is specifically for the “major publishers”, which Metacritic defines as a company that published at least 14 or more unique titles during 2014. The rankings are determined by the best overall score as averaged by reviews featured on Metacritic, the number of products with reviews above 75, the number below 49, and the number above 90. The first item counts for more, but all of these were factored in the rankings in some way.  The rankings are as follows:

• Nintendo – average score 76.5
• Ubisoft – average score 74.1
• EA – average score 74.5
• Sony – average score 72.5
• Square Enix – average score 71.7
• Microsoft – average score 68.9
• Bandai Namco – average score 68.0
• Activision Blizzard – average score 67.1

Nintendo certainly had a banner year with major releases like Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U. These games not only helped bump up their overall score, but also the number of games with high ratings. Ubisoft was lifted higher in the rankings thanks to their smaller RPGs like Child of Light and South Park: The Stick of Truth. EA of course had big AAA releases like Dragon Age: Inquisition and the Sims 4.

As far as the other two console manufacturers are concerned, Sony was dragged down due to a poor Vita performance, with only 39% of their games scoring well with critics. Microsoft didn’t have a single game rank in the 90+ category, but their Xbox One games performed decently enough. Only 30% of their entire collection received positive ratings from critics.