The Edge Awards 2013: Publisher of The Year

3. Ubisoft

Ubisoft was a force across all platforms in 2013, taking risks on curiosities such as Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, cultivating an expensive niche with Rayman Legends, and developing the best of the PS4 and Xbox One launch titles with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, while also investing in mobile. The Division, The Crew and Watch Dogs suggest the creativity will continue into 2014.

2. Sony Computer Entertainment

The Last Of Us and Tearaway set new standards on PS3 and Vita, while releases such as Beyond: Two Souls, Puppeteer and Rain demonstrate Sony’s commendable willingness to take risks even if they might not always pay off.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Congrats to the top three. Well deserved!

[hellzsupernova]

agreed its hard to argue with Nintendos quality thats for sure.

you could mix and match the top 3 they can all make a great case for it.

although i would say next year Ubisoft is going to be putting up a much bigger fight with Watch Dogs, The Crew, The Division, three new ip's big deal for them. All three are looking really impressive. (im sure theres more but those are the three that come to mind.)

Its great to see some of the big publishers taking risks with more varity then the usual shooters etc. Like puppeteer, Beyond two souls, Rain etc

[HurstDarkStar]

To the people hat disagree'd with nintendo's quality. Care to explain why they're not because I can't see why they wouldn't be up there (I'm serious I actually Want to hear it"

[Loadedklip]

@HurstDarkstar ... I disagreed because of the "you could mix and match the top 3 they can all make a great case for it. " comment.

Sorry but no single publisher can beat this list this year. IF there is one ... try to list it.

Fire Emblem Awakening
Animal Crossing New Leaf
Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon
New Super Luigi U
Pikmin 3
Wonderful 101
Lego City Undercover
Super Mario 3D World
Pokemon XY
Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds
NES Remix
Wii Fit U
Wii Sports Club

Multiple game of the year caliber games and other high rated games. Nintendo was the best publisher in 2013 bar none ... it's not up for debate.

[Loadedklip]

@HurstDarkstar ... I disagreed because of the "you could mix and match the top 3 they can all make a great case for it. " comment.

Sorry but no single publisher can beat this list this year. IF there is one ... try to list it.

Fire Emblem Awakening
Animal Crossing New Leaf
Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon
New Super Luigi U
Pikmin 3
Wonderful 101
Lego City Undercover
Super Mario 3D World
Pokemon XY
Legend of Zelda A Link Between Worlds
NES Remix
Wii Fit U
Wii Sports Club

Multiple game of the year caliber games and other high rated games and even casual friendly games. Nintendo was the best publisher in 2013 bar none ... it's not up for debate.

[hellzsupernova]

You disagreed cause you are a Nintendo fanboy. My comment was nothing but positive towards all three companies and you just cannot handle that

[Shnazzyone]

Fire emblem, animal crossing, pokemon, pikmen 3, Luigi's mansion, Super Mario 3d land, Link between worlds...

Yeah, Nintendo definitely earned it this year in sheer quality releases alone.

[HardcoreDaBoss]

I agree with this.. ubisoft, sony, and nintendo.. good article..

where is microsoft lol jk

[scott182]

Congrats to Nintendo, they are doing great.

[RPG_Lover]

Nintendo owned all this year

[ritsuka666]

Mario 3d,zelda,wonderfull 101,pikmin 3, and im pretty sure im forgetting more but that shows how awesome Nintendo is as a game developer in 2013.

[NeoTribe]

Is that why sony and ms are already pretty much caught up in hardware sales after only a month on the market? Yeah, there owning at being owned.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Its called launch hype.

[R00bot]

The Wii U sold 3.06 million in its first month. It's just launch hype.

[demonddel]

Sony and Nintendo should join forces

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

I prefer them separate.
That way, they spur each other on to do better.

[Reeze]

Agreed. However, if they ever did join forces...

*mind explodes*

[JohnS1313]

Good grief. EDGE is such a bad magazine. How does Nintendo get #1? All they do is make the same few games over and over again.

[MrTimesplitters]

You must be smoking crack.

[-Foxtrot]

Implying he's smoking crack also implies that what he's said is not true...which it kind of is

Ubisoft and Sony have given us new IP's this gen and at least tried them, while Nintendo hasn't as much. Compare the games here

"Animal Crossing, the best Fire Emblem and, in X&Y, perhaps the best Pokémon yet. On Wii U, we had a loving Pikmin update and the vibrant, majestic Super Mario 3D World"

To

"The Last Of Us and Tearaway set new standards on PS3 and Vita, while releases such as Beyond: Two Souls, Puppeteer and Rain"

or

"Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, cultivating an expensive niche with Rayman Legends, and developing the best of the PS4 and Xbox One launch titles with Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, while also investing in mobile. The Division, The Crew and Watch Dogs"

Nintendo deserves to be there...just not in front of Ubisoft or even Sony.

We also complain that devs don't give us new IPs but when they do they aren't recognized enough and we always focus on the ones who give us the same IPs. We just come off as a bunch of whiners in the end who don't appreciate when devs give us what we want

[Realplaya]

@Foxtrot try not to be so biased.
For one you have to understand that in order to make the same feel so new you have to do it right.
In one year Nintendo has learned how to properly make HD games. Sony and Ubisoft has been at it for years and Nintendo has caught up to them in a year and you know what they say it gets better as you go along.

Also are you trying to say they took no chances they made a system with two screens and a dedicated tablet controller when they have gotten knocked for not making a conventional controller for the system.

So remember this Sony and Ubisoft have done their thing but before you accuse Nintendo of only doing the same thing look at their entire body of work.

[ChickenOfTheCaveMan]

@Realplaya This HD thing must have been cooking for years at Nintendo, if not they'd be pretty stupid to launch a HD console and then learn how to exploit it.

You can't argue that Nintendo are serving gamers the same stew over and over again, they just mix the spices they use to make it look fresh...

[Loadedklip]

@ -Foxtrot ... Sony has only ONE franchise that sells as well as Mario or Pokemon ... and that franchise is Gran Turismo which they have many how many so far?

Yea ... a ton of them. If Sony franchise sold as much as Nintendo's ... they wouldn't be making so many new IPs. But since Jax and Daxter and even Uncharted failed to sell as well as a Mario game ... ND continues to do something "new" until they find their own Gran Turismo.

You can't blame Nintendo for making the same IPs when they own so many EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL IPs compared to everyone else. Also they do change up their games and make them feel new unlike other companies.

Look at Super Mario 64 ... Super Mario Galaxy ... Super Mario 3D World ... compare that to Uncharted 1,2,3 ... guess what ... Uncharted 4 will play just like Uncharted 1,2,3 ... with Mario ... you never know because Nintendo does innovates within their own established franchises which continue to be amongst the best selling franchises due to that ability to adapt and change while remaining familiar.

[LoveSpuds]

@Foxtrot

Well said squire, couldn't agree more! - have a bubble vote :)

[-Foxtrot]

Well my pickle my cucumber isn't that nice

[miyamoto]

Opinions are Opinions not fact.

Corporate opinions, top tens, reviews like these are published to make money, clicks and hits. They know how to generate clicks from 3 major fan bases of console gaming.

Still the best opinion for one's self is your own because there is no accounting for personal taste.

[Trago1337]

My favorite publishers. Well deserved.

[ape007]

nintendo deserve this without a doubt, 2014 look amazing too for wiiu, MK8, DK TF and Smash Bros, Damn

sony is great too and so is ubisoft

[R00bot]

Yeah, it looks like Nintendo could be winning dev of the year next year as well
C:

[OtakuDJK1NG-Rory]

My Top 3
1. Nintendo
2. Atlus
3. XSEED

[desertpunk86]

nintendo became the #1 publisher early this year when they released fire emblem awakining a master piece that should be game of the year easily beats the last of us,bioshock infinite and gta5.

[noctis_lumia]

then u woke up
deal with it TLOU owns all your nintendo games this year fact

[R00bot]

Wow, that's a really mature reply.
No facts, just opinion.
Ok.

[Reeze]

I just love it how so many people say a completely opinionated statement and then end it with "fact."

[RPG_Lover]

Nintendo should be number 1 in 2014 as well

[R00bot]

They should with Mario Kart 8, Smash Bros., Yoshi's Epic Yarn (or whatever it's getting called), X and more coming from them next year. I can't wait.

[Takwin]

I would double down on the top 3 in 2014 being these exact three publishers, and honestly, probably in the same order. Nintendo will throw down with Mario Kart and Smash Brothers, along with MANY other great AAA titles on Wii U and 3DS. Sony will crush it with megahits like Infamous and The Order. Ubi soft has such a huge and varied catalog, it is likely they will make the top 3 for the foreseeable future.

My 3 favorite publishers. Great year, and 2014 will undoubtedly be better!

[WeAreLegion]

I feel like Nintendo doesn't deserve it because they honestly aren't trying very hard. The quality is there, but it's not hard to maintain quality when you don't try anything new.

[RPG_Lover]

Yeah wonderful 101, publishing Bravely default ( which no one else would), isnt new?

come on......

[Moncole]

Its amazing how they can make great games without trying hard. I wanna see how good their games will be when they try hard.

[Theallplatformer]

On the contrary if you played any of their games then you would know that while the games might have the same name, they are worlds apart from each other, they each provide a fresh experience.

It's actually a lot harder to maintain quality and keep the audience interested in a series that is old as Mario. Lets take a look at Metroid: Other M for example, that game was beneath the expectations of the fans of the Metroid series. If it were easy to maintain the quality of a game because it's been around for a long time then Other M wouldn't have failed.
A game series survives only when the quality for every game(in the series) surpasses the expectations of its audience, and that is where Nintendo thrives, and where all their hard work pays off.
So to me yes Nintendo does deserve the number 1 spot.

[Geobros]

I agree with No 1 but I dont understand why he they dont mention Zelda ALBW too on Nintendo games. Or Nintendo wasn't the publisher of the game?

[Moonman]

I love Nintendo. Congrats.