Metacritic has released their list of the publishers with the highest average metascore for games released in 2020, and it comes at no surprise that SEGA is NUMBER ONE. While other gaming news sites have shared this story and acted like it’s insane to even thing SEGA is number one, no doubt because of some nonsense about how Sonic ’06 was bad 15 years ago or something, we here at SEGAbits have seen SEGA’s 2020 output and can easily see why they’d take the top spot. Release good games, get good results!
In 2019, SEGA ranked at 18, which makes this year a great leap. Of their 38 scored products, 95% were good and 0% were bad. Their “great” games were Persona 5 Royal (PS4) and Yakuza 0 (XB1).
Metacritic had this to say about SEGA’s win:
Ad:Now in its seventh decade, the Japanese gaming company had quite a good 2020, shooting up 17 places in our annual rankings to take the crown as our #1 publisher of the year. Sega’s average Metascore (including games published under the label of its Atlus subsidiary) was actually a fraction of a point below that of our #2 publisher, Annapurna, but Sega was boosted into the top slot by virtue of having two stellar 2020 games—though both (including Metacritic’s 2020 Game of the Year, Persona 5 Royal) were ports of previously existing titles to new platforms.
In fact, Persona and Yakuza ports accounted for Sega’s five highest-scoring products in 2020—while numerous console ports of Two Point Hospital and Bayonetta also helped bolster Sega’s average score. The publisher’s best completely new game last year was the strategy-adventure mashup 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. (Some of these games were released prior to 2020 in Japan, but we use North American release dates for our calculations.)
I’m very happy for SEGA’s critical success. As 2020 was such a down year, due in large part to COVID, it’s good to know that SEGA managed to release a number of quality offerings to the gaming audience. Though we fans were largely stuck indoors, we had these virtual experiences to help keep smiles on our faces through difficult circumstances. I hope SEGA’s momentum continues through the 2021 calendar, especially with it being the year of Sonic. Cheers!
It’s Sega. No need to be surprised.
Well said!
What a way to end the 60th GO SEGA Celebration
I’m very glad to see this. I couldn’t have imagined this happening 5 years ago but I’m glad. Hopefully this motivates SEGA to keep up the momentum and gives them the recognation they deserve.