Metacritic's list of the most successful publishers could worry PlayStation fans

In addition to collecting ratings from reviews of video games and other media, Metacritic compiles its list of the most successful game publishers each year. It is calculated in a specific way, by scoring through four criteria:

• the total average value of the average for all games that the publisher launched for sale during one year
• Percentage of games that achieved a good grade point average (75 and above)
• Percentage of games with a poor grade point average (49 and below) (negative points)
• the number of games released that fell into the 90+ category

According to scoring in these categories, Metacritic came up with a result in 2021 that made Xbox Game Studios the most successful publisher. And it's no surprise because Microsoft had well-received games like Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite, Psychonauts 2, Age of Empires 4, and Microsoft Flight Simulator (Xbox) last year.

Here's what Metacritic's list of 2021's most successful game publishers looks like:

1. Xbox Game Studios
2. Sony Interactive Entertainment
3. Humble Games
4. Activision Blizzard
5. Bethesda Softworks
6. Capcom
7. Bandai Namco
8. Prank
9. Electronic Arts
10. 505 Games

What might be shocking to some is that Microsoft should soon be the owner of 3 of the 5 most successful publishing houses in the world of gaming in 2021. Namely, Activision Blizzard and Bethesda Softworks are in fourth and fifth place on the list of the most successful publishers in 2021. However, it could be said that Microsoft benefited from the fact that they launched games on both Xbox and PC, which was not the case with Sony.

Here's a direct comparison of the results of Microsoft and Sony:

The biggest "losers" of the list are Nintendo, Ubisoft, and Square Enix, which despite numerous games during 2021 in the battle of "quality" lost to smaller publishers such as Humble Games and 505 Games.

Of course, such statistics are dynamic and depend on how productive a publisher is during a given year, as well as the activities of its competitors. At the end of the day, they do not have to be an indicator of the actual situation, because a lot depends on the number of reviews for individual games.