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Nintendo Switch had more 90+ games in its first year than PS4, Xbox One, or Wii U

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Deleted member 249

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For my latest Metacritic analysis, I decided to look at the first year performances for each current generation console on the market. I was, I admit, mostly curious about how the Switch held up compared to the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U, and it turned out to be an extremely interesting.

I also actually ended up stacking the deck against the Switch in this analysis- I counted all 2013 and 2014 games for PS4 and Xbox one (and all 2012 and 2013 games for Wii U), which actually ends up being a period of almost 14 months for each of those; meanwhile, for Switch, by definition I was only looking at eleven months. I also ended up removing one of the Bayonetta SKUs for Switch, knocking off a title from its list.

This is what we got:

WII U:
  1. Super Mario 3D World: 93
  2. Rayman Legends: 92
  3. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD: 90
PS4:
  1. Grand Theft Auto V: 97
  2. The Last of Us Remastered: 96
  3. Flower: 91
  4. Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil: 90
  5. Rayman Legends: 90
  6. Fez: 90
XBOX ONE:
  1. Grand Theft Auto V: 97
NINTENDO SWITCH:
  1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 97
  2. Super Mario Odyssey: 97
  3. Celeste: 93
  4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: 92
  5. Bayonetta 2: 91
  6. Shovel Knight Treasure Trove: 91
  7. SteamWorld Heist Ultimate Edition: 90
As expected, the Switch ends up having more 90+ games in its first year in spite of all of that, even though its first year on the market isn't even complete yet (so more games could added to the list in the next couple of weeks); also interesting, of the Switch, PS4, and Xbox One, the Switch is the only system to get any original 90+ releases in its first year (which is a bit ironic given how much it is criticized for ports).

On the whole, this serves to highlight just how great the Switch library is, and how good a job Nintendo and third parties have done on the system; we can only hope they don't let up on the momentum any time soon. It'd be interesting to see whether the Switch retains its lead after the second year, because for the Wii U and PS4 especially, their second years (2014 and 2015 respectively) saw a whole lot of acclaimed games hit the market.

Mod edit: Please read the OP fully before posting and refrain from any low quality console war posts.
 
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Platy

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Oct 25, 2017
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And that is considering most big publishers were still afraid of the switch on its first year!
 
TheMink

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I almost feel like every single consoles first year on that is somewhat invalid as most of those games released earlier on different consoles or are remasters.
 

Deleted member 2254

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Well, BOTW was originally a Wii U title, Celeste is multiplatform, MK8 was on Wii U first, same for Bayo2, Shovel Knight was just about on any other platform and SteamWorld Heist is not new either. Nintendo's exclusives have been great the first year: Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, even Picross, etc., but this chart is kinda meaningless the way it is.
 
OP
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FairyEmpire said:
Well, BOTW was originally a Wii U title, Celeste is multiplatform, MK8 was on Wii U first, same for Bayo2, Shovel Knight was just about on any other platform and SteamWorld Heist is not new either. Nintendo's exclusives have been great the first year: Mario, Zelda, Splatoon, even Picross, etc., but this chart is kinda meaningless the way it is.
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Now do the same thing for PS4 and Xbox One.
 
Jonneh

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SteamWorld Heist is in the 90's but Dig 2 isn't? This is an injustice.
 

PatMan

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Oct 27, 2017
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Still needs some heavy hitters to make me finally pull the trigger. If we don't see a VC/better online component the Switch will always be a second tier console. Come on Nintendo, you are so close to a break away success. Give us VC, give us a real online infrastructure, and get us those third parties and I'm in like Flynn.
 
wbloop

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"Switch has no games". We can finally kill off this meme, lel

Zool said:
Ok, these ports are helping Switch you are saying?
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bananafactory said:
It had a great first year but come on, half of those are WiiU ports
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And how many ports/remasters were on PS4/X1 @ year one? I love the PS4, but come, on. I almost know no one who bought it the first year because cross-gen was still very much a thing. Most of my friends and myself switched over when Bloodborne came out, over a year after release.
 
Horror

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First year, right?

PS consoles always start slow then rev up really fast. I wouldn't take much stock in this.
 
Novel Mike

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This threads is amazing just for how many people aren't reading the damn OP, holy cow I'm in stitches right now.
 

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Phantom Thief said:
Now do the same thing for PS4 and Xbox One.
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This is exactly why it's a reason it makes little sense. Switch had a great launch year, I'm a happy owner of a system, but there's no point in pointing out odd statistics where nearly every game you're trying to put as "wow what a Switch game" was available elsewhere for years.
 
Bomblord

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Don't forget these charts as well! (I know these are vs Wii/WiiU but they seemed relevant). Someone should make a similar one for it vs the PS4/Xbox One
total-games-by-day-279.png

good-comparison.png
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Fritz

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It's hilarious how people initially looked at the first year and were like: Where are the games?
 
Lady Lunalesca

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All this tells me is that Nintendo did a better job at getting WiiU ports out the gate. PS4 and XBox 1st year same thing except more indie ports.
 
labx

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Nice to the Switch with a strong line up. Nice to see Switch fans making another thread of how awesome the console and got this devs shouldn't be scared of investing in the console. These facts help me a lot to make the decision to go full Nintendo and cut the loop of the mis tier gen stuff and constant fear of a new PS in the corner.

Inb4: "half of them aren't AAA"
 
AAMARMO

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Phantom Thief said:
NINTENDO SWITCH:
  1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: 97
  2. Super Mario Odyssey: 97
  3. Celeste: 93
  4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: 92
  5. Bayonetta 2: 91
  6. Shovel Knight Treasure Trove: 91
  7. SteamWorld Heist Ultimate Edition: 90
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Not trying to be rude but most of the stuff on Switch so far have been ports from older platforms than new titles. Even the ones you listed are ports from the Wii U.

I understand there are indie games on the platform as well and that's great but first party and third party support still kinda meh like the first year of PS4/XB1.
 
Toriko

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Not sure what is great about this considering a lot of these are ports. If you want to say Switch has more 90+ ports than Xbox one and PS4 than yay? I mean Switch has had a good year but come on...
 

Deleted member 442

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's a nice number but in truth the first year of the PS4 and the Xbox One wasn't particularly memorable.

Remember when we didn't even know if GTAV was going to be re-released? Those were different times.

I'm very happy with having bought the Switch in the first year but historically Nintendo have been somewhat more dependant on having strong first years for their consoles. Outside of the 3DS they have rarely recovered after a weak debut.
 

Deleted member 5764

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This list fully explains why I've been so addicted to my Switch. Excellent games are the norm, rather than the exception. Doesn't really matter for me personally that some are ports when they're just quality games I'd like to re-visit.

As others have already mentioned, Switch actually has some exclusive/multi-release games on that list rather than all late ports. Keep it up Nintendo.
 
cw_sasuke

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Oct 27, 2017
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Year isnt over yet - but any way Switch year 1 was one of the best ever in my opinion. So much good content.
Zool said:
Ok, these ports are helping Switch you are saying?
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This didnt take long lol.

Fritz said:
It's hilarious how people initially looked at the first year and were like: Where are the games?
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Same way people are saying that Nintendo is cockblocking indie devs - yet we have like 20 indie games launching every week on the eShop.
 

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Phantom Thief said:
On Metacritic, the Xbox One versions did not get 90+ scores
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I don't think that's a fair comparison because most outlets receive PS4 copies for review. I highly doubt the differences between the two versions of those games is enough to warrant a difference in score, they just received less scores overall.

I don't even own an Xbox One, so this isn't some fanboy crap, I just don't think the lists are necessarily an accurate representation of the launch year libraries.
 
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