Wednesday, July 7, 2010
by Mike Smith
The games industry mighit be feeling the effects of the global recession, but 2010's output of video games hasn't declined in quality, according to a report from review aggregation site Metacritic.com.
In fact, the reverse is true: games across every platform Metacritic tracks have posted higher average scores over the first half of 2010 than they did in the same period in 2009. Seven games so far this year have earned mean review scores of over 90%, including hits like Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect 2, and Super Mario Galaxy 2, which ranks among the best-reviewed games of all time.
Games on the Nintendo DS, the PlayStation 3, and the PC turned in the best review performances, with this year's aggregate score averaging 75.0% in each case. The Xbox 360, Wii, and PSP trailed slightly, all three having delivered significantly higher rates of "mixed" and "bad" games over the course of the year so far.
And although the games industry as a whole is down substantially on its 2009 performance, the decline is largely attributable to disappointing hardware sales; consumers are still buying games. Software sales in May, buoyed by the strong showing of critical smash Red Dead Redemption, outperformed last year's numbers by 4%.
It's not about to slow down, either. Although July holds few heavyweight releases, there's a good reason for that: nobody wants to share shelf space with this month's behemoth, real-time strategy sequel Starcraft 2, widely expected to be one of the year's top sellers.
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