Metacritic has published the 2026 Game Publisher Rankings report, pulling together twelve months of data to recognize the best publishers in the gaming space through 2025. The numbers are undeniable, and standing firm at the top of the table is Square Enix.
Beyond that, we look for the titans, and we see something that some might think is a little surprising. Microsoft, as a publisher, managed to beat Nintendo and absolutely decimate Sony. In the rankings, Microsoft sits in fifth place, while Sony trails far behind in 21st place.
Xbox Beats PlayStation, Which is Rare
In Metacritic’s 2026 Game Publisher Rankings, Sony occupies a woeful 21st place with 268.5 points. It’s an almighty collapse from last year’s report, which revealed Sony as the fourth best-rated publisher of 2024. That year included releases such as Astro Bot, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and a PC port of God of War: Ragnarok.
Unfortunately for Sony, of the 17 products (across 13 titles) published in 2025, only 53% boasted ‘good’ ratings, per Metacritic. The top-rated Sony-published game of 2025 was, ironically, a PC game, with The Last of Us Part II Remastered landing a Metascore of 90 after being ported.
Microsoft fared much better. Last year, the tech titan was in ninth place, but 2025 yielded a fifth-place finish. With 305.7 points, 81% of Microsoft-published games ended up with a ‘good’ rating, but the catalogue was much deeper. There were 43 products published across 21 titles, and Forza Horizon 5 (even more ironically, a PS5 release) scored 92 to be the pick of the bunch.
Nintendo, by comparison, found a twelfth-place finish with 299.2 points and a 68% ‘good’ rating from 19 products across 18 titles. Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 2 was the gem of Nintendo’s crown, pulling in an admirable Metascore of 95.
As stated, Square Enix took the number-one spot with 100% good ratings from 19 products across 9 titles. Capcom wound up in third place, Take-Two in sixth place, Sega in seventh, and Electronic Arts in eighth.
Ubisoft scraped into eleventh place overall, enjoying some decent releases in Assassin’s Creed Shadows and the Avatar expansion, and Konami managed to secure a fifteenth-place finish.
The bottom of the table was occupied by the likes of Idea Factory (last place), Arc System Works, Nacon, and Microids, with Bandai Namco, Annapurna, and Plaion all falling in place beneath Sony.
It’s worth mentioning that Sony has only made the top spot of the list once, back in 2023. Microsoft has claimed the number-one mark twice since the first report surfaced in 2011, once in 2012, and again in 2022.
Are you surprised that Microsoft did so much better than Sony? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
People prefer Quality over Quantity.
And looking at only a handful of titles actually sold, mainly ones from big Thirdparty franchises. Sony had a bad year in 2025. But looks to change in 2026.