PlayStation Was Metacritic's Highest Rated Publisher in 2022 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 April 2023 / 4,638 Views
Metacritic has released its 13th Annual Game Publisher Rankings and Sony Interactive Entertainment was the number one ranked publisher of 2022.
Sony Interactive Entertainment last year was ranked in second behind Microsoft, who did not even qualify this year as they fell short of the cutoff for the number of releases in a single year. Sony released 15 scored games and all of them had a 100% good rating with two of them labeled as "Great" games.
Sony's average Metascore for 2022 was 85.6, five points higher than the number two rank, which is Paradox Interactive. Sony had 338.4 total points, which are calculated by four factors.
"In our publisher rankings published one year ago, Sony finished just behind Microsoft for the #1 slot," said Metacritic. "This year, Sony had no problem taking the top spot in our rankings—and not just because Microsoft failed to qualify (by releasing an atypically low four distinct scored titles, falling one title short of our five-game cutoff).
"Sony's nothing-but-green-scores 2022 slate may have consisted solely of ports and sequels to pre-existing IP, but it was consistently good, led by game-of-the-year candidate God of War: Ragnarok and a PC port of the previous God of War release. Even the publisher's worst 2022 title—MLB The Show 22—still scored a solid 77."
Here are the top 10 publishers of 2022:
- Sony Interactive Entertainment – 3384 points (last year rank: 2)
- Paradox Interactive – 322.7 points (last year rank: n/a)
- Activision Blizzard – 304.8 points (last year rank: 4)
- Focus Entertainment – 304.5 points (last year rank: 17)
- Take-Two Interactive – 304.0 points (last year rank: 27)
- Capcom – 299.2 points (last year: 6)
- Sega – 294.6 points (last year rank: 8)
- Annapurna Interactive – 293.8 points (last year rank: 18)
- Humble Games – 287.9 points (last year rank: 3)
- Devolver Digital – 285.5 points (last year rank: 11)
You can view the full list here.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, and Gran Turismo 7 all in one year is a stacked lineup that is hard to top or replicate.
Congrats! More than worthy in 2022!
Focus seemingly putting out some quality titles. I should pay attention more to their offerings.
Not surprising. Sony had a very solid year.
Well deserved seriously, I'm looking forward to play The Last of Us for the first time when it release on PC in just a few more days.
"Microsoft failed to qualify by releasing less than five titles" ouch
What's weird is that Paradox Interactive only released a single new game last year, so I'm not even entirely sure why they qualified lol. I'm guessing the console port of Crusader Kings III and some new DLC for some of their older games counted somehow.
Well that's why they aren't called "Make sense Interactive"
Microsoft released 2 games for PS5 last year, that hurt them.
Interesting.
I do expect Sony to be top ranked every year. I found Nintendo to be to low for my expectations. Sad that MS wasn't able to chart.
Sony sure is the most consistent but expecting the top spot every year seems a bit much. Sega was 1st in 2021(for 2020) and Microsoft was first in 2022(for 2021), I also expect Nintendo to score well in 2023 with tears of the kingdom and (finger crossed) Metroid prime 4:
https://www.metacritic.com/feature/2021-game-publisher-rankings-summary-table
https://www.metacritic.com/feature/2022-game-publisher-rankings-summary-table
They have already a 95 with Metroid Prime Remaster so that's something
Yeah, 95 on Metroid, 80 on Fire Emblem, 81 on Kirby, and a 80 the Bayonetta spinoff so far this year for Nintendo, with Pikmin, Zelda, Advance Wars, and more still to come. They definitely have a good shot this year with Zelda and Metroid pulling up their average.
Sony by comparison so far this year has an 87 on Returnal PC, a 79 on Horizon Call of the Mountain, an 84 on Moss Book 1 PSVR2, and an 88 on Moss Book 2 PSVR2, with TLOU 1 PC, Spider-Man 2, Stellar Blade and more to come later in the year. They are doing even better than Nintendo on the average for 2023 so far, 84 for Nintendo vs 84.5 for Sony.
Since Xbox is keeping Bethesda separate from Xbox Game Studios after the acquisition, Bethesda already has an 89 on HiFi Rush PC and an 87 on HiFi Rush Xbox, with Redfall, Starfield, Tokyo Ghostwire Xbox port, and Fallout 4 PS5/Xbox Series ports still to come. As for Xbox Game Studios, so far for the year they have an 86 on Age of Empires 2 Xbox port, with Minecraft Legends, Forza Motorsport, Age of Empires 4 console port, Ara: History Untold, and more still to come.
Edit: I am mistaken, the Moss games are self-published by the developer, not Sony published, so Sony only has the 87 on Returnal PC and the 79 on Horizon Call of the Mountain so far this year., giving them an average of 83 vs Nintendo's current 84 average.
Didn't mean top spot (number 1) every year, more like being on top 3 or on a poor year top 10. I done a poor choice of words.
I had a hunch it was the case and in fact did one up your post even before replying. Thanks for the precision nonetheless.
I'm gonna have to check out Paradox Interactive it feels like it snuck up out of no where.
Same, I had to google who they were, once I did I had heard of some of their games.
They're huge on PC. Grand Strategy is what they're known for, but also for RPG's and Sim Builders. Paradox even has their own annual convention.
Playstation really built different. Too bad they started an acquisition war.
Microsoft bought Rare in 2002.
When?
