2025 proved to be an exceptional year for Xbox at least on the publishing front, and this is confirmed by the sixteenth edition of the annual Game Publisher Ranking compiled by Metacritic. Microsoft has in fact reached a remarkable milestone by placing fifth out of a total of 28 publishers in the ranking, surpassing several historical giants of the video game industry including Sony and Nintendo, and gaining four positions compared to last year's ninth place.

Metacritic's ranking is calculated by taking into account only the critics' votes for games released in the calendar year, completely ignoring sales data or user reviews. According to these metrics, Microsoft recorded a solid average Metascore of 80: out of 43 titles published, 81% obtained a positive rating and, even more impressively, no release was labeled as "negative".

Going into the details of the productions, rather ironically the two games with the highest ratings in 2025 are you the PS5 versions of Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones and the Ancient Circle, while the most successful title to arrive on Xbox was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 under the Activision label, with the medal for the best game published directly by Xbox Game Studios going to Obsidian's excellent RPG, The Outer Worlds 2.

Dominating the top of this year's ranking is Square Enix in first place, followed by Gamirror Games (which, however, benefited from the release of only five titles, all acclaimed), Capcom and Thunderful. Just behind Microsoft, the top 10 closes with Take-Two Interactive, Sega, Electronic Arts, Dotemu and Raw Fury, while Nintendo and Sony have moved to the rear, in 12th and 21st place respectively.

This is a decidedly encouraging result, which we hope will only pave the way for an exceptional 2026 thanks to the titles expected for this year, Fable and Forza Horizon 6 in the lead. Here is the complete Top 10:

10. Raw Fury
9. Dotemu
8. Electronic Arts
7. Saw
6. Take-Two Interactive
5. Microsoft
4. Thunderful
3. Capcom
2. Gamirror Games
1. Square Enix