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Mass Effect

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 31, 2017
17,103
I mean Nintendo only have one game on that list too. What's the conclusion there? That Galaxy 1/2, Xenoblade Chronicles, Smash Ultimate, Fire Emblem whichever were all not worthy and Nintendo also need to up their game?

I think 'consensus GOTY' is kinda silly. Microsoft have released many great games this gen, never mind like nearly 20 years.

To be fair, looking at that list only paints a part of the picture. Both Mario Galaxy games still won a large number of awards (I think Galaxy 1 is 2nd). And Smash won a decent amount as well.

But you're right that GOTYs shouldn't be used an absolute barometer for measuring quality game output. And Microsoft has had decent output this gen, but definitely not as good as last gen.
 

Acquiescence

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Oct 26, 2017
10,257
Lake Titicaca
Let's all just pick a game that Microsoft released in 2014 and replace Dragon Age: Inquisition with it. A game that nobody looks back on fondly gets stripped of its GOTY title and Microsoft scores some internet points. It's a win-win situation.
 

Peek-a-boo!

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Oct 30, 2017
4,260
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It's the reason why I am no longer an Xbox fanboy (like I used to be) — the games are far more compelling and memorable on other consoles, and I would go as far to say that I haven't played a truly incredible game out of Microsoft's first party stable since the Xbox 360 days.

Let's all just pick a game that Microsoft released in 2014 and replace Dragon Age: Inquisition with it. A game that nobody looks back on fondly gets stripped of its GOTY title and Microsoft scores some internet points. It's a win-win situation.

That was the year where the media seemingly decided that the Wii U didn't exist.

The likes of Bayonetta 2, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. were miles better than feckin' Dragon Age and Shadow of Mordor! Heck, Alien: Isolation was criminally ignored too...
 

Yarbskoo

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Oct 27, 2017
2,980
I'm not sure a GOTY list is the best place to determine this, but I do agree that Microsoft's exclusives have been weaker than the competition's for a long time.

As far as top tier games go, there's Forza, and that's about it.
 

SuikerBrood

Member
Jan 21, 2018
15,517
Let's all just pick a game that Microsoft released in 2014 and replace Dragon Age: Inquisition with it. A game that nobody looks back on fondly gets stripped of its GOTY title and Microsoft scores some internet points. It's a win-win situation.

Forza Horizon 2
Sunset Overdrive
Halo The Master Chief Collection

Don't think any of 'm deserve it. Haha.
 

Spinluck

▲ Legend ▲
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Oct 26, 2017
28,877
Chicago
True, but I don't think Sony has a franchise that is as big as Halo.

Halo was massive when it came out.
 

Mass Effect

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 31, 2017
17,103
Let's all just pick a game that Microsoft released in 2014 and replace Dragon Age: Inquisition with it. A game that nobody looks back on fondly gets stripped of its GOTY title and Microsoft scores some internet points. It's a win-win situation.

Everyone knows 2014 was Nintendo's year. They got robbed.
 

Sylvee

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Oct 25, 2017
1,563
Past Breath of the Wild you'd have to go back to 2005 to find another game developed by a Japanese dev studio. Would you say that means that Japan struggles with making well-received or quality games? That list also ignores extremely important context. Cod4, Portal, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, and Mass Effect all were released in 2007 along with Bioshock but are presented as lesser to Dragon Age Inquisition which is considered to be a fairly unremarkable Western RPG that ended up winning due to there being very little competition that year.

That isn't even mentioning that as many have pointed out there's a ton of genres that have 0 chance of winning GOTY no matter how incredible they are. Or games that started out good but got incredible support and became amazing in their lifespan. Killer Instinct was a Microsoft exclusive that is undoubtedly one of if not the best fighting games of this generation but it picked up pretty much 0 accolades. Basing a company's gaming output on how many GOTYs they get is extremely flawed because there are a ton of absolutely incredible and important games that shake the foundation of the industry that also don't stand a chance at winning Game of the Year because they don't belong to the genres that are allowed to win.
 

Zarckoh

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Oct 25, 2017
1,084
Mexico
This honestly doesn't means much considering how much the media favors the AAA open world and cinematic experiences.

Hell if it weren't for BOTW Nintendo would also be on a situation where they don't have a frontrunner GOTY in a long time even though they have published games on GOTY caliber like Xenoblade, Bayonetta 2, Mario Kart 8, etc. Even games like Animal Crossing on portables in their library can deserve it considering it's impact and critical acclaim. I'm pretty sure that if BOTW hadn't released on the same year HZD would have won easily against Mario Odyssey given the boxes that HZD ticks.
 

Dan8589

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May 30, 2019
320
User banned (1 day): platform wars
OP just turned on more Sony fans than a naked Nathan Drake photoshoot.
 

Maneil99

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Nov 2, 2017
5,252
I consider Halo 3, Reach, Gears 1/2/3, Fable 2, Forza Horizon Series to all be Goty worthy games. Plus Ori, Inside and Cuphead
 

danhz

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Apr 20, 2018
3,276
nothing, i think i understood badly and list says candidates? or if actual winners, overwatch won 2016
 
Oct 25, 2017
26,560
It's not, because "won wide GOTY awards" is a great metric to see when a game was last considered to be a big fucking deal. Sony had one last year. Nintendo had two the year before that. Microsoft's last one was 12 years ago if I count Halo 3, which also wasn't the consensus win in its year.
It serves to highlight Microsoft's historic weakness in the first party area.
You're literally saying if you're not first you're last here.
 

pswii60

Member
Oct 27, 2017
26,894
The Milky Way
Yeah but made by Bioware and MS never owned Bioware right? I know the game was exclusive at the time, but still. Maybe at the time you could claim it was a MS game sure. Like Splinter Cell?
Microsoft green-lit, funded, supported and published the original Mass Effect, following their previous publishing partnership with BioWare on Jade Empire. Splinter Cell was published by Ubisoft and never first party, so a bad analogy. Mass Effect would have remained exclusive had EA not bought BioWare.

Really, it's not much different to what happened with Banjo et al, following Microsoft's acquisition of Rare. But nobody was debating whether they were Nintendo first party games back then. They were, until they weren't.
 

ericsp17

Member
Oct 27, 2017
480
Halo 2 was better than HL2 and San Andreas, and Gears 1 was better than Oblivion and TP imo. So its always gonna be subjective, but as long as they make games in the ballpark I'm alright with the production. They really haven't been lately. Hopefully they get back to the quality of the previous gens and I'll be happy.
 

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,113
Titanfall prob deserved GOTY in many's opinion over Dragon Age

If there's one thing the list demonstrates, it's that multi player games have very little chance of being the consensus pick in any given year. Practically all the games on the list are either single player only or mostly known/chosen due to their single player component.

There's not a single co-op game on the list either.
 

Deleted member 249

User requested account closure
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Oct 25, 2017
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Okay, but if BotW didn't win would you overlook it and both Mario Galaxies to make this thread about Nintendo?

A lot to criticize Microsoft for this gen, but Forza Horizon 4 definitely brought it last year. But is a racing game going to win that award. Not likely.
I'd point out in that case Nintendo has had several acclaimed games in this period even if they didn't win. Microsoft has Forza Horizon and Ori?
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,345
The same list implies Nintendo has only had one in the last 18 years, too, which is even more crazy though.
If this site went as far as 1996 Nintendo would've had 4. Windwaker, SM64 and OoT. Also Galaxy was very close to winning. Bayonetta is the only game that we can say was robbed in 2014 but it was only published by them.
 

Wamb0wneD

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
18,735
That's... actually worse. That means a huge percentage of high profile gaming coverage just straight up isn't reflected on this list.
No, it means that the outlets that are biased aren't taken into the equation. It's a good thing. If you want an unbiased view, you cut off the percentage of outlets thats biased. Most of them are not high profile, either.
 

TheSantry

Member
Dec 25, 2017
330
I feel like the first Gears of War was a ciritcal and commercial hit on the scale of Halo: CE. Halo 3 and Reach were also awarded heavily.
 

TheRulingRing

Banned
Apr 6, 2018
5,713
If there's one thing the list demonstrates, it's that multi player games have very little chance of being the consensus pick in any given year. Practically all the games on the list are either single player only or mostly known/chosen due to their single player component.

There's not a single co-op game on the list either.

Yeah. Unfortunately these "critical reviewers" really aren't very representative of the gaming public.
 

Bede-x

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,113
Yeah. Unfortunately these "critical reviewers" really aren't very representative of the gaming public.

Exactly. And the chances of being the consencus pick if you're a MOBA, MMO, strategy game or similar PC type exclusive are - like with multi player or co-op games - also extremely low.

It would be interesting to know which list of games the people behind the awards select from. Tell us which games they've played a significant amount of that year and which are left out because they didn't play them or maybe didn't even know about them.
 
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Haze

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Oct 25, 2017
11,915
Detroit, MI
Again, it largely tied UC4 in total GOTYs. It won more GOTYs than the vast majority of games on this list. It's only excluded from this list, because of the arbitrary decision that the top GOTY winner is part of the list.

It's just a bad way of trying to come to an objective conclusion where it does not exist.

Not to mention how arbitrary choosing which publications to include in such a list is
 

FFWarrior005

Alt account
Banned
Jul 13, 2019
534
Looks like Nintendo also didn't have one until 2017 but they obviously had a lot of great stuff

Ori was superb and Ori 2 will probably appear in at least half of goty lists, but the consensus Game of the Year is kinda hard to achieve because it's only one game
Even if they didn't have the consensus GOTY the fact of the matter is they haven't even had a game be a runner up or even third or fourth place in a long time. Compare that to Sony and Nintendo who even when they don't have the consensus they still usually have a game in the next couple spots winning a ton of awards.
 
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