The best games developing company ever?

[Alucard von Elru]

Kojima Productions for me. The Metal Gear Solid series has been an absolutely HUGE part of my gaming life, and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner is one of the craziest and coolest games I've ever played. Their games rarely disappoint me, and I feel that their games are more interesting and developed at a higher level than almost any other studio's. I eagerly await whatever it is Kojima and co. do next!

--Honorable Mentions:

No studio has a "spotless" track record for me (not even my favorite), but Squaresoft (NOT Square Enix) ranks very high for me. I adore Final Fantasy X, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, and Kingdom Hearts (the original).

Sony gets a lot of flack, and they deserve a lot of it for their often-crap marketing and ridiculous management, but their development studios are world-class. Naughty Dog has always been a very generic group in my eyes, until they rocked my face off last year with Uncharted 2. Sony Santa Monica's God of War series is, well, the best hack-and-slash action/adventure series ever made. Team Ico is, well, okay, "spotless" so far. :P Sucker Punch's InFamous doesn't do anything for me, but Sly Cooper is one of the best platforming series out there, especially Sly 2: Band of Thieves. One of the best platformers of all time! So yeah, Sony may not be as consistent as a Blizzard, but at their best their games are damn near peerless and as a company their stable offers a lot of variety.

Last up, Nintendo. Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Smash Bros., Pikmin, Metroid, etc. Not every game in those series' is good, but the ones that are tend to be about as close to perfect as games get.

[Greatermaximus]

At what point do we stop calling this one 'the best.'

At any moment you point out can signify when the device reaches state of the art status.

[Bolivar]

shouldn't have to be a 'best'. too tough to pick one. And I guess we don't know if we're discussing single development teams or companies that house multiple developers.

For me, they'd still have to be making games I enjoy.

Nominees:
Kojima Pro - hands down just some of the greatest games ever made from every aspect/viewpoint of game design. Peace Walker was phenomenal and I still have tons to do, including story.
Square - they made some of the best games of all time and still make games I enjoy, I'm enjoying XIII right now.
Sega - Shining Force, Sonic, Streets of Rage back in the day, Valkyria Chronicles, and Platinum Games stuff today. I love SEGA.
Valve - I hate the trendy hipster-gamers who love them (off these forums of course) but I simply cannot front, if for the mere fact of how many hours I have sunk into Counter-Strike 1.6 alone. Add up the classic gold collection and games I like but haven't delved into today, and you can't beat Valve.
Sony - they're simply leading in so many areas right now, pioneering "true"/traditional games and where they can go, such a diverse umbrella of studios from America, Europe, and Japan.

Right now I will give it to Kojima simply because of how great Peace Walker is today. It's my favorite game right now at this moment. And unlike Wolf Kanno, I would say the opposite is true - they've stopped whoring out MGS with Ac!d, Digital Graphic novels, and random game boy games, and instead are making incredible entries that take the core canon of the series in new directions. Only time will tell if MGS: Rising is any good or if MGS 3DS is worth a remake of such a masterpiece, but they have my full attention at the moment.

[Shiny]

Old School - Sega, LucasArts, Squaresoft, Nintendo, Capcom, Namco, Konami, and Sony Computer Entertainment

New School - Konami, Rockstar, Bioware, Ubi Soft, and Square Enix

[Levian]

Outside the obvious ones like Square, Konami, Capcom and Nintendo, I enjoy most games from Level 5.

[Rad Bromance]

Infinity Ward

[Meat Puppet]

Ayo Wisdom Tree in the house bitches

[Clo]

Right now I am definitely thinking BioWare.

Ahh, they're Canadian!

[Skyblade]

Since no one has mentioned it yet, I'll toss in Camelot.

They may not have the largest list of games, but that list is really, really impressive. Sure, half of it is sports games (specifically, the Mario sports games, which everyone hates), but the other half are all awesome, top-notch RPGs. We're talking the entire Shining Force series, its predecessors and spinoffs included. And of course, the other RPGs they've made, the awesome and soon-to-be more awesome still Golden Sun series.

It's just a shame these guys haven't made more RPGs.

[Wolf Kanno]

Well they have been trying to talk to Capcom into letting them make BoFVI.

[NeoCracker]

Well they have been trying to talk to Capcom into letting them make BoFVI.

So sad that they skipped V.

But if they get the rights I'd be in love with them.

And not all Mario sports games are bad, Strikers is surprisingly addicting.

[Bolivar]

Since no one has mentioned it yet, I'll toss in Camelot.

They may not have the largest list of games, but that list is really, really impressive. Sure, half of it is sports game (specifically, the Mario sports games, which everyone hates), but the other half are all awesome, top-notch RPGs. We're talking the entire Shining Force series, its predecessors and spinoffs included. And of course, the other RPGs they've made, the awesome and soon-to-be more awesome still Golden Sun series.

It's just a shame these guys haven't made more RPGs.

well I kinda incorporated their earlier stuff into SEGA because so many of the posts here seem to bring up larger publishing groups instead of individual developers.

[Shadowdust]

I've never played a Bioware game I didn't like. So my vote goes for Bioware. Bethseda gets an honorable mention thanks to TES.

[Laddy]

I guess I wan't the only one who found Dragon Age disappointing.

I also enjoy Rare. Rare was amazing.

[Markus. D]

Valve or Atlus... ooh! or Nippon Ichi.