| Alkibiádēs said: Switch had 45 games last year that scored over 80% on metacritic (in a period of 10 months). PS4 had 42 titles for all of 2014. Just to put things into perspective here. |
Exactly. To expand on this point:
PS4’s line-up was also LOADED with remasters and cross-gen games in it’s first year. It didn’t really have a steady stream of exclusives until 2016. I bring the PS4 to make the point that this is pretty common for consoles these days. Both PS4 and Xbox One received loads of remasters, ports, and shovel ware in their first year. When it comes to portables, this trend goes back well over a decade with the GBA and the DS.
Ports are quick, and porting quality titles early in a console’s lifespan is easy money.
But really, compared to its contemporaries, the Switch is doing rather well. Let’s look at it’s first year line-up of exclusives:
Snipper Clips, Arms, Splatoon 2, Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Super Mario Odyssey, Xenoblade 2. Nearly all of these games were great, one was a game of the year contender. The upcoming Kirby game is missing the year one window by a matter of weeks.
Meanwhile...what did PS4 have? Knack, a supremely mediocre platformer. Killzone Shadowfall, a good but unmemorable FPS. LittleBigPlanet 3 and Drive Club, two games I haven’t played but I know didn’t do well with critics or fans. Really, out of PS4’s entire year one line up, the only exclusive I loved (and that reviewed well, for that matter) was Infamous: Second Son. And even that, I’d argue, wasn’t nearly as good as Super Mario Odyssey.
PS4’s year one line-up was mostly filled out with cross-gen multiplatform games, remastered ports, and loads of indie titles. It’s second year wasn’t really that much better. It wasn’t until 2015 that we started getting stuff like Bloodborne and Until Dawn.
Making games takes time. There are loads of great Wii U games people haven’t played, and loads of other games that would make for great portable (or TV if they were portable) experiences. So I’d consider these ports to be a net positive. But even by measure of purely exclusive titles, Switch has probably had the best line up of any console in YEARS. Certainly the best of this generation.
