Metacritic has taken a lot of abuse from the development and editorial communities recently. These negative comments have come from some of my most highly respected sources, including Warren Spector. While they have valid points, Metacritic does have value, albeit an underutilized one.
The problems with Metacritic are numerous. The two most basic seem to be the choice of included reviews and their "black box" weightings. I would prefer to see Metacritic scale back its population of mined sites and limit the list to those sites people might actually go to when making a purchase decision. That would then help enable the fix to the second issue. Metacritic's score weightings need to be transparent. A consumer should know if IGN's score is being given 10x the weight of the very likely better written and better informed Edge score for example.
These two issues and their partners in misinformation do not however preclude Metacritic from serving a very specific and important purpose. It is the most objective yet readily available way to compare the relative portfolio strength of competing platforms. Everyone can point to examples where an individual game is overrated or underrated in composite, but these cases likely even out by the time hundreds or even thousands of games are reviewed and indexed throughout a system's life cycle.
While it's unfortunate that Metacritic doesn't go far enough back to objectively demonstrate that the Genesis absolutely did what Nintendidn't, we can draw similar comparisons for more recent console wars. Queue Huey Lewis and the News; we're Going Back in Time.
Last generation was one of the more competitive ones ever in terms of hardware sales. All three consoles had very strong showings, with each carrying the greatest momentum at some point between 2006 and 2013. If we define a "quality game" as any game receiving a green indicator -- awarded for a composite score of 75 or better -- on Metacritic, Nintendo's one-time sales juggernaut, the Wii, was home to 199 quality games. Microsoft's Xbox 360, which will pass the Wii in total global sales sometime soon, can count a comparatively staggering 686 quality games. Finally, Sony's PS3, my personal favorite console of the last generation, weighs in at 589. This distribution makes sense to me. While the PS3 had a better exclusive lineup, especially late in the generation, the 360 was home to the majority of better multiplatform versions, which would give it a relatively slight edge in total.
This use case of Metacritic passes the sniff test for one generation, but is that a fluke? Let's dial our time machines for 2006-7 and the end of the previous console generation. The PS2, which sported one of the best exclusive lineups of all-time, measures 516 quality games. Given that this was a shorter generation and without the additional opportunities presented by DLC, that seems like a solid number. The PS2 distant competition somewhat predictably couldn't measure up with the Dreamcast, GameCube, and Xbox contributing only 66, 189, and 329, respectively. An interesting aside is that the PS2 and PS3 each beat the combined total of the GameCube and Wii. Microsoft came close to the same feat.
With Metacritic going two-for-two in reasonableness, let's head back to the first generation where composite scores are available and the battle between the discs of future and cartridges' last gasp raged. Horrifically, Metacritic ignores the existence of Sega's Saturn, while the Nintendo 64 coughed up just 55 quality games. That of course left the door wide open for Sony's original PlayStation and its 110. The combination of the last number seeming low and the Saturn's absence makes me question the completeness this far back, so maybe it's good that we can go no further.
There is, however, one last untapped vein of Metacritic gold: portable games. Data in that area goes back to the Game Boy Advance, which was home to 195 quality games against essentially no competition, especially in North America. The Nintendo DS followed that with 232 quality games, edging out Sony's PSP, which had 181. If you're surprised that one was as close as it was, (a) you shouldn't be and (b) hang on to your hats for the grand finale.
The last pair of portable pugilists a lot of people have interpreted quite poorly. Leading off was Nintendo's 3DS, which launched on February 26, 2011. In its three-plus-year lifetime-to-date, it has seen 76 quality games or roughly 25 per year. Following almost a year later to the day in North America was Sony's PlayStation Vita, already home to 83 quality games or just about 41 per year. If you've ever said, typed, or even thought, "The Vita has no games," you are absolutely incorrect but not alone.
The Vita certainly is not the most impressive number available by looking at Metacritic this way, however. Whether you're wearing Mario underwear, have a poster of Nathan Drake on your wall, or just think Halo is a great FPS, bow your console-filled head in shame and be awed at the PC's 1,345 quality games. Metacritic can even objectively crown the Master Race.
