Every January, data analytical company Fancensus publish a list of the fifty games released over the last twelve months with the strongest press and social presence. Or put simply what has made the most “noise” over the Internet. Yesterday saw this year’s edition released and as you might imagine Nintendo fared pretty well for a number of reasons.
First of all, of the fifty games featured in the list, Nintendo was responsible for an impressive seven of them. Fresh IP ARMS managed to place 45th while enhanced port Mario Kart 8 Deluxe landed in at 44th. Splatoon 2 meanwhile nestled in a little higher at 30th while Nintendo’s headlining showstoppers Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild would claim 10th and 4th respectively.
It wasn’t just Nintendo Switch titles to make the list however with Nintendo 3DS releases Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon sliding into 41st and even the Super Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition seeing a strong performance landing in 37th ahead of other notable releases like Persona 5 and NieR: Automata. Ubisoft’s Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle also appeared on the list coming in at 33rd.
Super Mario Odyssey also received recognition in two other areas – best critically reviewed game of the year as well as the highest view count of all gaming trailers on YouTube for not only its January debut trailer but also its E3 one too. The Nintendo Switch rather unsurprisingly claimed the crown for most talked about hardware of the year.
So, all in all, a very strong showing for Nintendo then, not just from a critical standpoint but for its general presence overall. Whether it’s reflecting on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or just the press, their first party efforts appear to have left a strong mark and it will be interesting to see if Nintendo can leave the same positive impression on the Internet in 2018.
