Nintendos current console has more games on it than the PlayStation 4 and 5 put together, but also the best record of quality on Metacritic. In the modern era of gaming. you can usually guarantee two things about a Nintendo console: that it will feature a number of highly acclaimed first party exclusive games, and that it probably wont have many top titles made by third party publishers. After all, no one expects the latest Grand Theft Auto or Call Of Duty on a Nintendo console (not that both havent happened occasionally). People happily buy the Nintendo Switch knowing that many games available on the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 4 will never appear on it, but that doesnt mean that, overall, the Switch has less games. In fact, surprisingly, the opposite is true. A fan has added up all the games available on Switch and discovered it has an incredible 11,555 games. Thats more than any other previous console, including the PlayStation 4 and 5 combined, the PlayStation 1 through 3, and all Xbox consoles including backwards compatibility. If youre wondering how that can be, its because the Switch has become a haven for indie games many of which sell better or are only released on Nintendos console (and usually PC). Its also due to a lot of what can only be described as shovelware: low quality games thrown onto the eShop with little care on the side of the creators and with no attempts at curation from Nintendo. The Last Of Us knock-off that Sony insisted be removed from the eShop is one of the few famous examples, with most of the others being sub-mobile style rubbish no ones ever heard of.
The original observation was made on the forum ResetEra, using data from Mobygames and DekuDeals, which highlighted some small inconsistences between the two sources. Forum member St. Eam the 3rd found that while Windows PC has by far the largest library, at 66,569 games, thats because its backwards compatibility stretches all the way back to 1993. The Switchs total though is comparable to both iOS and Androids games libraries which are also filled with mountains of anonymous shovelware and well ahead of its nearest console rival, the PlayStation 4, at 10,870 games.
Even when you take backwards compatibility into consideration the Nintendo Switch beats all comers, which is ironic because it isnt backwards compatible itself, since its predecessor was the disc-based Wii U. With the PlayStation 5s catalogue added to the mix the total for Sonys most recent consoles still only comes to 11,463, compared to 11,555 for the Switch. Interestingly, 8-bit computer the Commodore 64 has the seventh biggest library, behind the various modern PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
However, that does not mean that the Nintendo Switch has achieved its total at the expense of quality. The Switch also has the greatest number of games receiving a 90+ Metacritic score, the greatest number of 75+ games, and the second greatest number of 60+ games. Once again, its the PlayStation 4 which is closest behind, although obviously thats been around longer than the Switch, and the PlayStation 5 is newer than both. Its a fascinating collection of stats and while you could argue that ultimately it doesnt matter, given the small number of games most people end up owning for their format of choice, the Metacritic results alone are very impressive. Whats definitely interesting is that, unlike the current Switch, the Switch 2 is heavily rumoured to be backwards compatible, which could mean the majority of current Switch games will be available on the new format from day one which will certainly be a sizeable head start for the console.
Nintendo Switch number of 90+ Metacritic games: 39 PlayStation 4 number of 90+ Metacritic games: 33 Xbox One number of 90+ Metacritic games: 26 PlayStation 5 number of 90+ Metacritic games: 25 Xbox Series X/S number of 90+ Metacritic games: 16 Nintendo Switch number of 75+ Metacritic games: 962 PlayStation 4 number of 75+ Metacritic games: 921 Xbox One number of 75+ Metacritic games: 575 PlayStation 5 number of 75+ Metacritic games: 382 Xbox Series X/S number of 75+ Metacritic games: 242 PlayStation 4 number of 60+ Metacritic games: 1,861 Nintendo Switch number of 60+ Metacritic games: 1,783 Xbox One number of 60+ Metacritic games: 1,078 PlayStation 5 number of 60+ Metacritic games: 660 Xbox Series X/S number of 60+ Metacritic games: 383
Interesting numbers especially with the knowledge that Sony values high Metacritic scores.