Well, some people (beware, not all or even much) say in the actual discussion about Zelda, that Metacritic user scores do say it is worse than critics say (so insinuating a conspiracy of reviewers generally help Nintendo with critic scores). A few years ago, Nintendo itself actually pointed to user scores, by pointing out WiiU and 3DS had more games with both scores (users and critics) good than PS4 and X1.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/252563/nintendo-wii-u-and-3ds-has-more-great-games-than-playstation-4-and-xbox-one/

So actually Nintendo was saying back then, what a few people say now: user scores on Metacritic have a meaning.

So what do you think, was Nintendo right and user scores on Meta are meaningful?

Nintendo finds whatever metric that favors them to be the one that is "more meaningful".

That being said, I agree with the conclusion that 3DS and Wii U had (have) more great games than PS4 or Xbone.

lol no. Theyre not even reviews. Just:

"Perfect game" - 10/10

or

"Game sucks and is overhyped" - 0/10

I think many people like the zelda franchise (So do I) and might score a game better because they love the series and have a connection with the franchise.

Zelda Breath of the Wild is a very good game, is it one of the best games ever made, Not sure. Its one of the best Zelda games and a must play in my opinion for sure.

New gamers especially younger once will not have the same connection and generally will just compare it with other things they recently played and they might favour a graphical powerhouse like Horizon Zero dawn or a more mature take like The Witcher did and rate Zelda lower then that.

Obv. there is some bias in both critic and user score but in general critic score is a better reflection then user score will ever be, since some people will just downvote a game because they don't own or like the system its made on or dislike nintendo, xbox or ps in general.

But in the end its not important, Like I said Zelda is a good game and most people who pick it up know what to expect and will just love/like the game :)

User Scores, which don't even require that one proves ownership of the game, are completely useless.

User scores need to be done right for them to work. The user has to be a confirmed owner of the product, then the user score becomes better than the professional critics.

review scores are a form of free advertisement, could be good or bad advertisement. When people hear about a game that has amazing reviews, that's when they start to show more interest (same with movies and music) users scores are useless when haters and trolls start giving 0 and writing stuff like "this game is crap fuck Nintendo"

Steam has a good system where you need to buy the game and play the game before a review.

This still isn't perfect. Amazon is full of 1 star product reviews from users who are upset that UPS damaged the product during shipping. Also people often rate products early on and will seldom go back and update their rating if something changed. Lots of products or games could wow you right out of the box. Problems may not be evident until weeks later.

It's always going to be up to the consumer to synthesize user reviews, professional reviews, the taste of professional reviewers, their own tastes, and the tastses of the community at large in order to make a choice. 

You're always weighing pros and cons. I'd trust a journalist over someone who rates pretty much anything as a 0 on metacritic.

I'd trust my friend who has owned a phone for 6 months over a CNET reviewer who spent a weekend with it. 

I'd trust myself above all when a superhero movie starts getting 95/100 from users and critics alike. 

It seems crazy, but I pretty much look at a mass number of negative reviews on Metacritic as a positive.

BotW has 1380 negative user reviews. Many of which are zeroes. What that tells me is that even the haters are so passionate about this game that they're registering accounts and making silly reviews dogging it.

Dirt Rally for Xbox One has a higher user metascore, but only 63 people were passionate enough about it to write a review.

This reminds me that Steam now won't accept user score/review unless their account actually purchased the game.  I think this needs to be applied on every review system/websites etc...

Personally I love that idea, but I would go beyond that so that only those that completed the game should be to post their review/score.  Not sure if there's an easy way to check that, but I do know many games will give you a trophy/achievement for finishing the game. So I would make it mandatory for every game to have a trophy/acheivement for completing the campaign mode to allow everyone to know if you finished the game or not.

I know this guy that's on my PSN friends list and he was talking crap about this one game he finished and how it sucked.  I didn't believe him because it's a really popular game loved by many.  So I went and checked his PSN Trophy list; he barely played the game! He only unlocked like the first trophy where you get for just playing the beginning area and thats it!  

...Hate people like that.