Sony lost its position on Metacritic's publisher rankings in 2025.

Despite owning some highly anticipated exclusive titles, Sony ended 2025 with a significant drop in Metacritic's ranking of reputable game publishers. 

Looking back at 2025, Sony's console platform certainly wasn't without its highlights. Both blockbusters, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2, received numerous nominations and won many prestigious awards at Game of the Year events. However, these resounding successes weren't enough to secure the dominant position of the Japanese giant.

According to Metacritic's recently released ranking of the best game publishers in 2025, Sony was a major disappointment, plummeting to 21st place with an average score of only 74. This result marks an alarming step backward, a drop of 17 places from the top 4 position the company held in 2024.

Notably, out of the 17 products released last year, only 53% of the games received a 'Good' rating on this review platform, and a mere one was rated 'Excellent'.

Experts believe this decline clearly reflects Sony's lack of a consistent, high-quality game release strategy, while also continuously wasting developers' time through project cancellations.

Sony's most highly anticipated work of 2025 is the PC port of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, closely followed by the masterpiece Death Stranding 2.

Unfortunately, these efforts were dragged down by a wave of negative reviews targeting Destiny's expansions as well as the highly anticipated Lost Souls Aside. While the studio's lineup of AAA blockbusters wasn't exactly a mess, the dismal failure of other projects like Midnight Murder Club contributed to a bleak overall picture.

As a result, Sony had to reluctantly rank behind a host of other big names like Ubisoft, Koei Tecmo, EA, and even Atari in the year-end rankings. Even more painful, their biggest competitor, Microsoft, confidently entered the top 5 with an average Metascore of 80.

Ironically, Microsoft's highest-rated game turned out to be a port of Forza Horizon 5 for the PS5. Meanwhile, the top spot on this year's ranking went to another Japanese company, Square Enix, largely thanks to the immense popularity of the PC version of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth – a game that was once a PS5 exclusive.