Job done

There's an image from Nintendo doing the rounds that claims that the Wii U had the most great games this year. It uses a combination of Metascore and user score from aggregation website Metacritic to draw its conclusion, which struck us as an unusual fusion of information. Perhaps this is because the aforementioned website's data actually paints a different picture.

To be clear: we have no real horse in this race, and we're not saying that we necessarily agree – we're just posting the statistics as we see them. And according to the above publication, it's actually the PlayStation 4 that had the most great games this year. The site has come to this conclusion by totalling up the number of titles with a critics average of over 90, and Sony's system won with five.

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Of course, the real failing of this metric is that all of the titles tallied are re-releases. Grand Theft Auto V and The Last of Us Remastered were the two best scoring titles across all platforms in 2014, attaining an average of 96 and 95 respectively. Meanwhile, the excellent Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition - Reaper of Souls, Rayman Legends, and Fez all scored 90 apiece.

Nintendo pulled away in the exclusives stakes, with nine well received titles over 75 to the PS4's disappointing four. Both were destroyed, however, by the PC, which managed to rack up a whopping 45 top titles not available anywhere else. If history has taught us anything, though, a lot of these will make the jump to consoles in the not too distant future.

Incredibly, there were over 146 titles rated on the PS4 this year – almost as many as on the Xbox One and Wii U combined. These weren't all bad either, as the system's average Metascore for the year was 72.0, compared to 72.4 and 66.8 on Microsoft and Nintendo's machines respectively. This is quite an achievement actually, as more content can tend to pull averages down.

And to be fair, Sony's latest system did have its share of bad games in 2014. Basement Crawl was the worst of these, but Fluster Cluck and Air Conflicts: Vietnam all netted abysmal scores, too. In addition to The Last of Us Remastered, the best exclusives on PlayStation this year were Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, inFAMOUS: Second Son, and LittleBigPlanet 3. Not a bad lineup.

Of course, we'll reiterate, this data is far from conclusive – and is actually easily skewed. Consider, for example, that Grand Theft Auto V scored a point higher on the Xbox One than on the PS4, primarily because that version was covered by just 11 critics compared to 63 on the latter. It's these kinds of averaging issues that can unbalance the information, so it's far from concrete.

And, naturally, none of this takes into account personal preference...

Update: Yes, as pointed out in the comments, the original Nintendo tweet pertains to the entire lifespan of its systems, and not 2014 alone. Sammy has been taken out into the backyard and flogged with a leather belt for this error. Apologies to all!

[source metacritic.com]