The 2011 Edge Awards: publisher

We'll be publishing our awards for this year throughout the week. See all of them by visiting the Edge Awards topic page, or following the topic using My Edge.

Runner-up: Bethesda Softworks

Key games: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Brink, Rage

In a world of publishers running after gaming’s rapidly expanding borders or releasing me-too FPSes, Bethesda stands proud with a roster of distinctive, concept-rich games that make gamers care. Brink’s concept may have surpassed its execution and it was a pity that Rage’s pioneering tech didn’t extend to its design, but Skyrim’s success is testament to an old-school attitude paying off.

Runner-up: Ubisoft

Key games: Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Child Of Eden, Rayman Origins, Driver San Francisco, From Dust

Old Ezio might be getting severely creaky, but Ubisoft’s keen eye for a marketing campaign almost let him off. Other key releases emphasised its inspiringly catholic tastes – New Age toy From Dust, the happy clappy Child Of Eden and Rayman Origins’ HD upgrade of the platformer – while its faith in Driver, when everyone else had given up on it, resulted in the best driving game since Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit.

Winner: Nintendo

Key Games: Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Dismissing Nintendo’s efforts over the past year would be easy. Take its disdain for App Store-like prices in its eShop and DSi Shop, for instance, which sees games that are released for a mere 69p on other platforms costing five times as much. And the games that Nintendo has released, as superlative as many have been, have been agonisingly mistimed. The 3DS launch lineup had to rely on the relatively flimsy charms of Nintendogs + Cats and Pilotwings Resort as its flagships, so it wasn’t until the end of the year’s Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and Ocarina Of Time 3D that the handheld finally found the broad relevancy and buzz it needs.

Similarly, as Wii enters its twilight period, having enjoyed so few marquee Nintendo releases in the past couple of years, it was only late in 2011 that Nintendo released The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword, prompting thousands of Internet commenters to “dust off” their consoles in anticipation. But though the games may be late, what games they are. Each one is polished to perfection, reflecting Nintendo’s attitude to quality and value, as well as its respect for its fanbase. Such an exemplary approach to game-making is something to which other publishers, many of which are apparently happy to put out rushed products in order to hit launch windows, can only look up.