To add another element to the debate, let's discuss exactly what is being argued in regards to which company is superior to the other.

Shoden, you're largely arguing from the angle that the FF series (and not Square as a whole, I might add) is more popular and has done better commercially than the Tales series and other Namco series (and not Namco itself as a company, I must point out). It's a good argument.

I'm looking at it from a different perspective, however, and I think many of the people who have posted in this thread are sharing that perspective.

I have no idea which corporation is more financially successful, and I'm not about to look up fiscal year earnings or anything of the sort because, to be honest, I think it's irrelevant. I believe the original intention of the thread was to discuss which company is better at developing fun, original, high quality games and game series.

I think it goes without saying that the most profitable games are not necessarily the best, and this is evidenced by the fact that some of the best selling games are licensed rubbish and half-arsed franchise sequels.

Obviously, I like the Final Fantasy series, or else I wouldn't have signed up to post on a message board titled "Eyes on Final Fantasy". In addition, Chrono Trigger and Xenogears are probably my two personal favorite RPGs, both developed by Square. On the other hand, though, Square has made some games I thought were horrible. Every company has. Square is not a "god company". They also have little strength in any genre other than RPGs.

I don't favor Namco by a tremendous margin, but it was still a fairly easy choice to make. Namco has developed many wonderful games, and more importantly, I've played few Namco games that I didn't particularly care for. Namco also gains points for the fact that they've recruited the former-Square Xenogears team.