If you’ve participated in any conversations about the latest consoles and handhelds, then you’ve likely run into people suggesting that one system has “no games”. If nothing else, these systems in question are nothing but bringing out port after port instead of new titles. But all of these assumptions are reliant upon personal observation. If you don’t really care for the Vita, for example, then you’ll only notice things which agree with your previously held ideas.
But what if someone were to actually look at three of the latest systems right now in a means to either validate or invalidate these common complaints? Well, of course, that’s just what I did. Some may not consider the 3DS, Wii U, or Vita as “next gen” devices, but they will likely be classified as part of that generation broadly alongside PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It’s not about power, but the time frame in which they launch.
With that said, my goal was to create lists of all North American retail game releases between the devices. Then, I went through and looked up each title to determine whether or not it was a port or enhanced port or a brand new game developed for that system. The term “port” is not best used for handheld consoles sometimes when a portable version is a completely different game, but we seem to mostly be beyond that point technologically for it not to be a massive consideration. Basically, by “port” I am suggesting that the game in question is available on multiple systems. I was looking to see how many titles are not exclusive to their systems!
Finally, I decided to also check out Metacritic scores (where available) to see if any system is batting out continuous amounts of excellent titles, shovelware, or are basically average. As it turns out, it seems that most consoles probably fall somewhere in the 60s for scores, but we’ll get to that later.