Microsoft is taking huge leaps in 2022, to say the least. Following an Earth-shattering deal involving Activision Blizzard’s acquisition, it just became the best publisher in Metacritic’s annual rankings. All thanks to the amazing games that were released last year under its Xbox Game Studios.

Metacritic annually comes up with a ranking list of best publishers. On that, it awards the top positions to the best-rated publishers. And for 2021, Microsoft, with Xbox Game Studios, is the number one publisher, outperforming one of its main rivals, Sony.

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Microsoft emerges victorious on Metacritic, beating Sony, while Nintendo is nowhere to be seen!

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios published ten games last year, which were reviewed by the website. Out of them, five titles had a combined average score of 87.4. Among them, specifically, three were rated great (with a score of 90 or above). They were Forza Horizon 5, Microsoft Flight Simulator (for Xbox Series X), and Psychonauts 2.

As per Metacritic, it’s the first time Microsoft had an average Metascore of 85, in a year, since the rankings first began more than a decade ago.

On the other hand, PlayStation Studios owner Sony missed the opportunity to claim the top spot. It had an average score of 81.3 based on the 11 published titles in 2021. Of them, ten were rated ‘good’ but none of them could achieve a score of 90 or above to become ‘great’.

The dent in the coffin for Sony turned out to be its PS5 exclusive Destruction All-Stars. Upon its launch, it could only attain a score of 62, which affected its publisher eventually in Metacritic’s rankings.

Here are the Top 10 publishers, based on their average score of best rated games, for 2021:

1. Microsoft | Xbox Game Studios – 87.4
2. Sony – 81.3
3. Humble Games – 80.9
4. Activision Blizzard – 80.6
5. Bethesda Softworks – 80.2
6. Capcom – 80.6
7. Bandai Namco – 78.5
8. Sega – 77.6
9. Electronic Arts – 78.3
10. 505 Games – 75.7

Surprisingly, Nintendo was nowhere to be seen on the list of over 40 publishers. That’s quite weird and also shocking given that its games usually end up selling very well while getting good reviews as well.

What are your thoughts on this news? Did you expect Microsoft to perform so good last year? Let us know in the comments.

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