The other day I got to thinking…I wonder which console has the best downloadable games? No, I’m not talking about being able to download full PSP games off the Playstation Network or older retail boxed titles on the new Xbox Live “games on demand” thing. And I don’t mean downloadable add-on content for store-bought games. I mean games made for the download market: Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, and WiiWare.
I mean, I know which console I think has the best downloadable games. I mean, I love Fat Princess and all, but I generally find a whole lot more games I like on XBLA. That’s personal preference. What can we learn about the quality of the games on these services, statistically? So I headed on over to Metacritic (a site that averages review scores for movies, TV, DVDs, and Games, in case you’re unaware) and found the top 20 games for XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare. Here’s the raw data, with analysis at the end.
| XBLA | PSN | WiiWare | ||||||
| 1 | Braid | 93 | Wipeout HD Fury | 89 | World of Goo | 94 | ||
| 2 | Geo Wars: Retro Evolved 2 | 90 | Super SF2 Turbo HD Remix | 87 | Bomberman Blast | 86 | ||
| 3 | Portal: Still Alive | 90 | Wipeout HD | 87 | Tetris Party | 86 | ||
| 4 | Castlevania: SOTN | 89 | Bionic Commando Rearmed | 87 | MaBoShi: Three Shape Arcade | 85 | ||
| 5 | Rez HD | 89 | Flower | 87 | Swords and Soldiers | 84 | ||
| 6 | Peggle | 89 | Shatter | 87 | Mega Man 9 | 83 | ||
| 7 | Super SF2 Turbo HD Remix | 88 | Marvel vs. Capcom 2 | 87 | Strong Bad Ep 5 | 83 | ||
| 8 | Puzzle Quest | 87 | Comet Crash | 86 | Strong Bad Ep 2 | 82 | ||
| 9 | Ikaruga | 87 | Super Stardust HD | 85 | Art Style: ORBIENT | 82 | ||
| 10 | Monkey Island: SE | 87 | Warhawk | 84 | NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits | 82 | ||
| 11 | Trials HD | 87 | Battlefield 1943 | 84 | LostWinds | 81 | ||
| 12 | Geo Wars: Retro Evolved | 87 | Everyday Shooter | 83 | Strong Bad Ep 4 | 81 | ||
| 13 | Bionic Commando Rearmed | 85 | Pixeljunk Monsters | 83 | Final Fantasy CC: My Life as a King | 80 | ||
| 14 | Splosion Man | 85 | Gran Turismo HD Concept | 82 | Toki Tori | 79 | ||
| 15 | Bomberman Live | 84 | Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection | 82 | Strong Pad Ep 3 | 79 | ||
| 16 | Worms 2: Armageddon | 84 | Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | 82 | Bit. Trip Beat | 79 | ||
| 17 | Marvel vs. Capcom 2 | 84 | Echochrome | 81 | Tales of Monkey Island Ep 1 | 79 | ||
| 18 | Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo | 83 | Bomberman Ultra | 81 | Bonsai Barber | 78 | ||
| 19 | N+ | 83 | Pixeljunk Eden | 80 | NEVES Plus | 78 | ||
| 20 | Battlefield 1943 | 83 | Penny Arcade Adventures Ep 1 | 80 | Groovin’ Blocks | 77 |
Average score of top 10 games:
XBLA: 88.9
PSN: 86.6
WiiWare: 84.4
Average score of top 20 games:
XBLA: 86.7
PSN: 84.2
WiiWare: 81.9
Number of games with a score 85 or higher:
XBLA: 14
PSN: 9
WiiWare: 4
Some analysis on the next page…
Pages: 1 2
#1 by booya on August 14, 2009 - 10:22 am
Nice analysis! Are these statistics consistent with the total # of games for each online platform? Would be interesting to see the number of games for comparison.
#2 by jasoncross on August 14, 2009 - 8:25 pm
Hard to say. Certainly there are more games on XBLA than PSN or WiiWare. I think there may be more games on PSN than WiiWare, but I haven’t counted.
#3 by zoom on August 14, 2009 - 9:26 pm
This is kind of pathetic, Jason. Tetris party is one of the better implementations of a classic game – to single it out for dismissal like while giving SotN/Rez/Ikaruga/SSF2T and frigging Puzzle Quest a pass is … highly questionable. Then going further and claiming your cherrypicked example just shows Wiiware games in general are not only worse on average, they’re also *overrated* … that is insane. Your fanboy is showing. Also, there are better games than Tetris Party on ALL of those lists that don’t rate as high. Don’t cry because your favourite XBox games got rated lower – it just shows how arbitrary Metacritic score are and how they shouldn’t be taken seriously at all let alone ‘analysed’.
Also, if, as you said on Qt3, the goal was to compare all games on the download services without considering whether they were new or not – it seems exceedingly strange to ignore older games like XBox orginals and Virtual Console releases, which would change the ranking considerably.
#4 by jasoncross on August 14, 2009 - 10:12 pm
There’s no need for name calling. My fanboy is showing? Methinks thou dost protest too much, sir!
And yes, Tetris Party is a fine game. It’s good. But an 86 puts it in pretty rarefied air on the other lists, ahead of plenty of other games.
Take Tetris Splash. Yes, it’s a worse downloadable Tetris game than Tetris Party is, but not terribly worse. It gets a 53 on metacritic. Yes, Tetris Party has more stuff to do and is definitely a better game, but 86 to 53 better?
And no, my goal was not to compare every downloadable game on all platforms. It is to compare games available in XBLA, PSN, and WiiWare, not downloadable versions of retail games. Sorry if that was unclear. It’s almost impossible to really compare things like Xbox Originals because you can’t separate out reviews of the game today as a download title form reviews when it was a new Xbox game (where it was judged quite differently).
#5 by zoom on August 15, 2009 - 12:17 am
“Methinks thou doth protest too much, sir!” Well you would wouldn’t you!
But really, to pick out that one rating as if it were a pattern and use it to ‘prove’ how Wiiware is getting an easy ride when pretty much every other rating on that lists seems ~ right (ie. Wiiware is mostly composed of junkware and the top-rated games reflect that) – come *on*, Jason. It was just a lazy argument and an absurd reach in an otherwise fastidious-to-the-point-of-not-even-being-interesting article. It stuck out. Of ALL the things you suddenly decide to lose your faith in Metacritic over … that’s it? It’s just peculiar that we’re asked to accept without question that Puzzle Quest and Peggle and Rez are all better games than a fully fleshed-out version of Tetris with some pretty creative and even demented game modes. So what else is overrated there? Presumably you take issue with *many* of those scores. So let’s go. What is Jason Cross’ World of Goo score? 89? Orbient gets what? 75? I just want to know!
#6 by jasoncross on August 15, 2009 - 1:50 pm
Oh, nothing here is “proof.” You can’t “prove” an opinion. You’re confusing “proof” with “example.” No, I’m not asking you to “accept without question” Puzzle Quest or Peggle or Rez are better games than Tetris Party. It’s an opinion about the relative merits of WiiWare titles compared to PSN and XBLA. You are encouraged to have your own opinion. Neither of us will be correct or incorrect.
I’m merely expressing my opinion that many WiiWare games get scored more highly by critics (not me! not you! Critics reviewing the games!) than games of similar quality on PSN or XBLA. I think they get reviewed relative to other WiiWare games, and there haven’t been enough stellar WiiWare titles yet to “raise the bar” for that platform.
#7 by zoom on August 16, 2009 - 3:30 am
Opinion shmopinion – you were the one making authoratative statements about quality, falling back on ‘opinion’ now is a ridiculous copout – especially given that the aim of the article is to *quantify* opinions. Sheesh. There isn’t anything that makes Tetris Party somehow indictative of reviewer kid gloves when it comes to Wiiware. To act as if it’s just obviously a worse game than Puzzle Fighter or Puzzle Quest (or any of the other games on that list) is laughable, and generating some general rule a single game – you refuse to offer more examples – is psychotic. Tetris Splash was a barebones entry – it’s possible it was *underrated*, but it says nothing about Tetris Party, which is a much better version, no matter how you try to underplay it.
Finally, over half of the games on the 360 list are do-overs of ex-retail games. So you’re not sticking to your rules. PS3 and Wiiware have more original content in the top 20. I can understand not counting Virtual Console games/XB Originals/Playstation Classics because they have no new content at all, but it’s also worth pointing out that the distinction is narrow and technical.
#8 by work at home on September 9, 2009 - 11:27 pm
Very good work, interesting post, bookmarked !
#9 by Alex on November 27, 2009 - 6:31 pm
All my friends tell me I need to get BF 1943… now only if they’d buy it for me.