Nintendo Places Outside Top 20 In Metacritic's 15th Annual Game Publisher Rankings

Weird decision to single out Mario vs. Donkey Kong when it reviewed better than Princess Peach: Showtime!, Nintendo World Championships, and Emio and roughly on par with Luigi's Mansion 2 HD and Brothership. It's a perfect comfort food game for me. Not anything stellar, but it's a satisfying little game that reminds me of some of the flash games I used to love.

aw man, kind of disappointing, especially for us nintendo fans! we didnt get a super big year lasst year though, but i personally feel EOW and paper mario ttyd and maybe even jamboree deserved over 90 😕 next year will be for sure better though with MKX and Metroid ^^

Yeah I really haven't touched my Switch for the better part of a year now, just for lack of big hits. Mario and Luigi and TTYD lost me within 10 hours, Jamboree was fun with friends but nobody else has it so we gotta schedule hangouts, and there really wasn't anything else that even interested me enough to buy.

Actually scratch that, I really loved Emio and my Alarmo but that's about it for 2024. Nice to see Digital Eclipse so high too.

You lost me at “Metacritic”

First off, how is Nintendo lower than they were in 2016? That was their worst year ever, even taking FE Fates and TPHD into account.

Second, I know 2024 was still an average year for Nintendo, but outside of them and SEGA, I smell heavy corporate bias in this ranking.

Not that suprising tbh - it's been a bit of a weak year. On the plus side, the Switch has built up such a strong catalogue that a weak year is more about having a lack of hype than a lack of good games to play.

It’s complicated here. 2024 wasn’t a stellar year for Nintendo/Nintendo games but it’s stupid to say 90 and higher means a great game. I would say 80 and higher is still a great game. Paper Mario ttyd got 88 on metacritic. That’s a high score and it’s great game. Just because it’s 2 points away from a crazy high score, it’s not a great game? Metacritic can be a joke sometimes. Echoes and jamboree aren’t far from that either.

I mean, this isn’t apples to apples at all. This year Nintendo was 22nd out of 37 companies. Were there 37 companies in the ranking in every other year? I doubt it.

@Jam777 because I cannot think of a better scoring system than that of Metracritic, IMO. Certainly not ones like Rotten Tomatoes (I know I know it is not for games but just as an overall example).
I do have certain sites which I tend to agree with their game scores such as Gamespot, but even with them the reviewer does change. This way you get the best notion overall.
Counterargument?: "I don't believe in Critics, just test the games yourself".... Well no, I don't have time for that, other than specific franchised like Zelda, Mario, Red Dead, etc.. which are guarenteed . Critics have helped me discover strange games that I would have never tried otherwise like Animal Well just recently or even Persona Games. On the other hand it has saved me from trying games that looked great on trailers/surface and apparently where trash

"No great games" in the year Echoes of Wisdom came out. Every time I think Metacritic can't discredit itself further...😛

They were Number 1 for me.

Paper Mario TTYD, Princess Peach Showtime, Mario Vs. Donkey Kong.

2024 was a great year for me with Nintendo games.

PQube being so close to THQ is wild to me. Did THQ Nordic not release much this year?

Echoes of Wisdom GOTY 2024 and you can't change my mind.

Wow Sega number 1

Nintendo so far down, I’d even question some of those above Nintendo.

I can't argue with this, honestly, even for a huge Nintendo fan myself. At least for non-remake/port games, there was just rarely anything that caught my eye from Nintendo's hands; even their Princess Peach: Showtime! game wasn't much for me to write to the missus for, despite enjoying it. The only other new Nintendo games I bought that same year was Super Mario Party Jamboree and Mario & Luigi: Brothership, both of which weren't "bad" but I expected better out of.

If anything, I was more amazed by third-party and indie games like Bakeru, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, Crash Puzzle! Hammer-san, and Fruit Mountain.

Sega at one? Year of Shadow just keeps winning.

@Bigmanfan Year of Atlus I would rather believe.

Shrugs. I had plenty to play and buy so all good to me. I doubt Nintendo is crying into their money about it.

Love my OLED switch, but I'm revisiting my 3DS library and PS Vita with a bit of PS5. Says a lot for what I have to play on it. Zelda Echoes, Mario RPG, Paper Mario, and DK were like fast food. Quick snack but not very filling. Zelda TOTK was the last game I spent any quality time with.

True - it was a weak year overall, but this ranking is still a bit skewed because Nintendo releases more games than most of those other publishers. If you only publish a small amount of titles it’s easy to end up higher on the ladder.

“Nintendo is doomed”

It’s been a while.

I've looked back on my Switch and I've averaged 5 Nintendo game purchases every year!

Except 2024. When it was zero.

So say what you want about Metacritic... they're clearly not wrong.

BUT does it even matter? This was a twilight year. The feast is just over the hill...

2024 was a pretty weak year; Brothership, Showtime and Echoes were all...OK, at best. Everything else was remaster/re-release.

it really was an excellent year for sega good stuff all around from them

@Jam777 yea that's why I mentioned Gamespot, whose scores are usually in line with my taste. But even then, the reviewers change all the time. The specific person does not review all games I am interested in. That is why a general one like Metacritic is my first go to.
And I agree with you about some weird reviewers but Metacritic does not (mostly) pull reviews from non gaming sites. But yes when it does it shows.
F.ex i just looked for 2 examples :

• This week's Split Fiction Reviews: Lowest Score from The Sydney Morning Herald (70) the game still has 91 in MC.
• BOTW: Lowest Score from Slant Magazine (60) but the game has a 97 Overall
  So yeah, wtf are those 2 non gaming sites scoring games for and Metacritic picking them up for? I give you that.
  But it is the minority, the overall is still picked from specialized sites reflecting general consensus that I mostly agree with.

Nintendo needs better quality control outside of their pillar franchises

Okay, i get that all this is doing is measuring mode but SERIOUSLY?! Maximum above Atari and Focus in the top 5?! What did Aksys even release last year? Who the heck is Gamera Games?!

@SoIDecidedTo It was a fallow year for the thqdic. Only 4 releases and none of them have an average above a 70. Which is about keeping in like with tradition

Expected when all there was was remakes and rehashes.

Still not a big fan of the methodology of these rankings, a publisher publishing a couple of "just okay" games shouldn't detract from them publishing great ones, especially if those "just okay" games were smaller one off or niche kind of games and the great games were hyped and highly anticipated.

I also still feel like many reviewers in the industry are more critical of anything Nintendo publishes because if they aren't they get accused of being biased in favor toward Nintendo. It's like the common belief is that the industry is too soft on Nintendo, so many reviewers over-correct in the other direction.

I'm not saying Nintendo had an amazing year or anything, but 22? Really?

@Dom_31 An average of a game a month is not jacksquat regardless of whether you cared about any of the releases or not. Sony would kill to have 11-12 exclusive games (counting Fitness Boxing 3) in a year these days

@OctolingKing13 I can't believe how low EOW scored, the game is amazing, I'd have a hard time taking any reviewer seriously after giving it anything less than a 9/10. But maybe it's just my taste.

Oh no, the sky is falling! What will we do with our lives?!!!!

Sums up my boring filler year from Nintendo really, so glad they ranked lower it’s what they deserved.

Now let’s hope when switch 2 releases we finally get back to those big very very special top end Nintendo AAA in house studio games.
It’s dam boring owning a switch when they don’t release those type of amazing games.

Ah yes, because Ubisoft totally had a much better year than Nintendo last year

Coasting their way to Switch 2, #22 isn’t awful considering.

These metacritic lists never do any favors for publishers that release a lot of games per year like Nintendo.

A publisher can release only one game that ranks like 83 or something and they would be higher than a publisher that released several games that rated 85, 75, 79 or whatever. Quality over quantity for sure, but for the most part, Nintendo does both.

I don't think Nintendo was even #1 in 2023 when they released Xenoblade 3 FR, Tears of the Kingdom, AW 1&2, Pikmin 4 and Mario Wonder. To me, that's far and away #1 publisher of the year.

@Alpha008 I would guess that Prince of Persia did a lot of the heavy lifting for UbiSoft in 2024.

@PikaPhantom Yes! I greatly enjoyed the Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake, especially with it having more worlds than the original version. I would hardly call it "middling".

It is not too surprising Nintendo got a low score because people have the "What have you done for me lately" it seems these days.
When Switch 2 comes out and games start flowing again, the results will rise Nintendo back up again.

@Riku3456 They have 75-89 be “good” and 90+ to be “great.” There has to be a cut off somewhere if you’re just taking this as a pure numbers calculation. I understand that it’s frustrating for a game to be that close, but even your suggestion would have a game get a 79 and someone get upset by it. You are right that 90+ is a crazy high score, which is why I think it’s worth highlighting the games that clear such a high hurdle.

2024 wasn’t Nintendo’s best year and that’s OK. It’s especially OK since 2023 was great and they are hopefully ramping up preparation for the Switch 2. People don’t remember the weak years, but the great games and great years. Hopefully 2025 can be a good year for Nintendo on the development side.

Probably a bit low in real terms of value. Sega being no'1 is well deserved. and Focus do release a lot of good games across platforms. so there 5 listing seems fair.
Atari should have placed higher , surly people are not playing the games.

But how do the likes of Ubisoft and Super Rare, Red art place even as high as they did.
Go figure Ill never understand the way peoples minds work. Maybe these should be broken down into two categories, Games from Publishers of AAA/ AA/ A GAMES AND INDIES.

Nah.
I don't care with Metacritic scores.
I bought the games that I thought acceptable for me even the mediocre games.

@KryptoniteKrunch It seems a publisher had to release at least 5 games to be eligible for the ranking, and also, the #1 ranked publisher Sega released 12 titles, which is just 1 fewer than Nintendo released in the same year.

@TotalHenshin I get there has to be a cutoff somewhere, I am just arguing that it’s a stupid cutoff since 90 is so high if you think about it. That 79 example you put up I am not even mentioning. Doesn’t matter to me.

I do agree that Nintendo didn’t have its best year and it isn’t a huge deal especially with switch 2 coming. Got a lot of backlog anyway which most people or gamers rather should have.

Sega/Atlus utterly dominated 2024, with 6 critically acclaimed games, one of which won several awards (Metaphor). I don't think there's been a publisher line-up this good since Nintendo's in 2017. They even released an amazing Sonic game!

Sega did what Nintendidn't, I guess.

Lol squenix at 6. Metacritic is only useful for the drama and dumpster fire stories.

i take this list as a grain of salt no way in hell nintendo is that low.

It's metacritic. Expecting a serious list?

their year was not great last year.
too many okish games

In 2017 Nintendo released Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey.

Would anyone care to be pointed out if they also released a dozen other forgettable games that year? That doesn't make those 2 game any less awesome.

We remember developers and publishers for their "hits", and ignore their misses. I would rather MetaCritic say...tally up their "85+" score games released, maybe bonus points for "90+" and "95+". That would better reflect what they have contributed to our industry.

@MontyCircus Excellent point. If this was calculated by the past decade, or even 5 years, I think that the bigger picture would be very different as to where Nintendo really stand in the industry.

@Mana_Knight

I'm not even defending Nintendo, I don't think the "average of all your games" is very useful.

In 1995, Square released Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore, and Trials of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 3.

Does anyone care if they made a dozen or two dozen flops that year? No! It's irrelevant. It's a fantastic Square year!

Or to put it another way, you might hear someone say "the '80s were a great time for action movies!"

Would someone then start listing all the bad '80s action movies? Who cares? They were ignored then and forgotten now.

When evaluating gaming companies, we remember the "hits".

I have no idea what Sony published last year outside or Astrobot (and Concord, of course). Is one game enough to grant them such a high ranking ?

Sega is on fire though

Nintendo just above EA and below Ubisoft. What happened to them?

The only publisher in the top 22 I've bought anything from this past year is Devolver.

It’s definitely been a slower year for Nintendo but that’s no bad thing. They’re clearly gearing up for Switch 2 and honestly I’m glad for the breather and chance to catch up.

But Metacritic scores are nothing to go by, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. Personally I’ve played/been interested in 0 Sega games this year, whilst I’ve played and loved at least half of Nintendo’s output. It’s like getting upset that the game you liked didn’t win GotY, it’s meaningless.

@KITG_GROUP I can’t speak for their other games, but Ubisoft did have Prince of Persia in Jan of 2024 - and it did review well.

@DwaynesGames , yes POP was a game that everyone raved about.

Nintendo irrelevant

Endless Ocean was, unfortunately, the biggest disappointment of them all

I was confusing Red Art with Red Deer, publisher of AAA Clock, and was about to be big mad.

@Zeebor15 Thanks for the info. I think I was thinking of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. I haven't played it but loved the first time I played it and assumed this one was a better version.