Nintendo comes in fourth in Metacritic’s ninth annual game publisher rankings

The following info comes from Metacritic‘s ninth annual game publisher rankings, which places Nintendo at the fourth spot:

COMPARING THE 2018 RELEASES OF GAME PUBLISHERS

Which game publishers released the best games last year? For the ninth consecutive year, we sifted through 12 months of data to determine the best and worst game publishers of the year, based solely on the quality of their 2018 releases. Sales and user reviews do not factor into these rankings; only critic reviews (as captured by each game’s Metascore) are used to evaluate performance.

4. Nintendo

Previous year’s rank: 2

Best Overall Release

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch) – 93

Best New IP

Octopath Traveler (Switch) – 83

Worst Overall Release

Kirby Battle Royale (3DS) – 57

Metacritic Users’ Favorite

(tie) Bayonetta + Bayonetta 2 (Switch), Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch), and Octopath Traveler (Switch) – 8.7

Nintendo tied Sega for the largest number of titles released in 2018. (Square Enix had more total products, but fewer distinct titles.) While its ranking and average Metascore declined a bit compared to the prior year, Nintendo had two games scoring 90 or more in 2018: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Bayonetta 2, both for the Switch. Nintendo also launched two well-reviewed new IPs last year (including its new Nintendo Labo cardboard-to-game series), though the better of those (Octopath Traveler) was developed by Square Enix rather than in house.

Source: Metacritic.com