Art: While FFXII is also a game I feel is very underrated, SotC and Ueda games as a whole are held in a regard of their own as far as that goes.

Industry Changing: Gran Turismo was what made realistic racing games a thing, at least on consoles. It's also probably the series that weighted the most on making Europe a bigger player in the console market as it is today, changing a lot the two axis based gaming industry we had before.

Technology Marvels: Feel free to read any reviews from Naughty Dog and Santa Monica games. That doesn't mean other companies can't also make those, as Rockstar and CD Project Red, even so, they are very few and Sony is likely the strongest of them all, honestly.

Innovative Experiences: Well, tell me how LBP was not. Or Dreams now. People already made FF7Remake on Dreams, ffs.

New Standards: The Last of Us has raised the bar on story telling/development on games that's not even fun to pretend you didn't know it. Gaming has had a gold standard to meet since it released.

About the investments, I never said it has anything to do with gameplay or being fun, but that all big companies have to keep it in check to deliver what the industry is demanding nowdays. When a heavily marketed game fails to meet it, as Crackdown 3 for example, it already gets a good bunch of criticism and it reflex on its score. Meanwhile if BotW looks like it has zero AA and I can see stuff I couldn't on the best PS3 games, it's fine, nothing happens. Again, doesn't mean anything about being fun or a good game, just that it reflects negatively on anything else considered big, except for Nintendo.

The fact Sony still doesn't have a game with a 97 metascore while Nintendo can get it twice in a year is pretty telling.

Except they do.

That doesn't mean Nintendo games doesn't deserve a lot of praise because they do a lot of time, but that it will take a damn lot to get it actual criticism. It'll get slammed 10s all over the place even if the actual review has some complants, meanwhile if it is a Sony game it'll get 9s even if the reviewers adored the game, because criticism will still take place.

The fact Sony still doesn't have a game with a 97 metascore while Nintendo can get it twice in a year is pretty telling.

I'm not saying Nintendo doesn't deserve it or that Sony games are better (even if they are my prefference, so you know my bias) but that it doesn't matter what Sony do, games regarded as pure works of art (SotC), as industry changing (GT), as technology marvels (Uncharted), as innovative experiences (LBP), as new standards to games (TLoU), and so on, Sony gets more GOTYs than anyone else, even against other companies games with superior scores by those same reviewers (where those other games can reach such high score).

There is no denying Sony games are the ones treated with unrealistic standards that others simply aren't, and Nintendo is actually the one with the least of that in a time where they have fallen behind in technology and investiment and that is held in such high regard to anyone else that is considered big.

Again, that doesn't mean Nintendo games doesn't deserve the praise/sales they get, but they get it without the same trouble anyone else has, because if the game is good that's all that matters, criticism will be basically non existent or irrelevant even if it is there.

The problem with games like Pikmin is that they are high budget titles but don't sell well and don't sell hardware. That's why Nintendo shouldn't focus too much on them. A Pikmin 1-3 collection for Switch, made by a third party developer? Sure, I'll take it. But putting years of effort and millions of dollars into Pikmin 4 just for it to sell 1.5 million units? They could spend their money and time more wisely.