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Square-Enix.

 

[BasilZero]

Square-Enix back to good ol' Squaresoft of the 90's.

This pretty much.

 

[Berordn]

I want a sequel to Simcity 4, damnit.

 

[Midou]

Square Enix with Capcom being a close second. Both of them have released some good games this gen, but feel to be a shadow of their former self, both either drowning out or simply butchering some of their biggest franchises.

 

[DocSeuss]

Excellent one, my second pick. But I'm going with...

EDIT: also...

And this is why you're one of my favorite Gaffers.

 

[Mileena]

yep, Square. They're an absolute mess of a company these days that only produces good stuff through Eidos.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Looking Glass Studios

 

[Extra Sauce]

Sierra On-Line.

Once I get King's Quest IX, Space Quest 7, Gabriel Knight 4, Leisure Suit Larry 8 and Police Quest V I can die a happy man.

Lucasarts in extremely close second. Come to think of it, I probably want "Maniac Mansion 3" more than any of the aforementioned games.

 

[Saikyo]

Sega

 

[Izick]

1.) SEGA

2.) Genesis-era

 

[famousmortimer]

Give me Socom 2-2 and MAG 2, please.

 

[TreasureHunterG]

NES/SNES/N64/Early GCN Nintendo - The company everyone grew loving it and was a paradigm for gaming development.
N64 Rare
SNES/PS1 SquareSoft
GEN/SAT/DC Sega

I miss them.

 

[TaroYamada]

SEGA but during which era is the tough part of the question. Dreamcast or Saturn or Genesis? I can pick a five year period, so lets say 96-2001. Captures Saturn and Dreamcast eras. Though SEGA's arcade output in the 80's/90's was also nuts, so the mega drive era has that in its favor.

I do have to say, I find the number of replies mentioning Square surprising. They still regularly make pretty damn good games and similar to what they used to make, just on handhelds now.

 

[starmud]

sega, back to when they had good developers and studios... in JP at least.

 

[FlyFaster]

Probably Squaresoft.

 

[IcyRhythms]

I'm not sure ALL of the companies mentioned here have changed. I think in many cases we fail to realize we've changed/grew up.

 

[ULTROS!]

Since everyone said Square Enix, I'd go for Konami.

Konami with Silent Hill (by Team Silent), Suikoden, and Igavania was godsent.

 

[BrokenEchelon]

1998-2005 Blizzard.

StarCraft, Diablo II, WarCraft III, WoW. There has never been a better output by a developer in history.

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Hudson soft.

 

[iavi]

sega, back to when they had good developers and studios... in JP at least.

They still do.


Sega was the first group that came to mind for me too, but it'd be trading the Sega of now--who's not bad at all with their games, hd ports, and pc support--for the Sega of then who was godly with the games, but lacking in a few areas that mattered.

Squaresoft. Back to Squaresoft.

 

[The Dutch Slayer]

Rare N64 days.

 

[VASPER]

infinty ward

I must say Sega, i did and still do love Sega. Fuck now i got to =go back and play some Sonic 2

 

[Art Teitlebaum]

EA circa 84.
Lucasarts.

And of course SEGA. F355. Sigh. What is this water in my eyes all of a sudden?

 

[tea_and_crumpets]

Its got to be Rare from the N64 era. So many great games.

Think Bioware deserves an honorable mention as well.

 

[Odrion]

Valve

 

[gurudyne]

Rare N64 Era

Every game they made in that era is one of my favourites of all time, I really just want a sequel to perfect dark that keeps the tone and style of the original a bit better and a N64 era Banjo-Kazooie platformer (although nuts and bolts was pretty great).

Noddingandclapping.gif

 

[GSG Flash]

Squaresoft back to PS1 era, no question. I've wasted months of my life on Squaresoft games.

Nintendo was a close second, but I feel that they still make great games, it's just their hardware philosophy sucks and they're extremely poor at resource allocation.

 

[SaggyMonkey]

I'd like the LucasArts that gave me Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango and Tie Fighter.

 

[SGRX]

Origin.

Honorable mentions: Sierra, Bullfrog, Looking Glass, LucasArts, Westwood.

 

[Anticitizen One]

 

[Ahasverus]

Konami. It had awesome IP's and was churning creativity all time. What happened to you?

 

[RPGCrazied]

Square Enix, no question, lol. PS1/PS2 era they were unstoppable. What happened?

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

Anyone who answered anything other than

Is so incredibly wrong, they should be arrested.

 

[Freezasaurus]

This thread just makes me want a new Sega console all the more.

 

[Acorn]

Sega.

 

[Contra11]

Sega

 

[Aitor]

Westwood Studios; the Command & Conquer series was awesome, before EA bought/kill them.

 

[MisterC20XX]

Sega - Genesis era, without question

This.

 

[Midou]

I understand for the most part about Sega, but they've done some good new IPs in the last couple of gens, like Yakuza and Valkyria Chronicles. Sonic is finally making his comeback in games like Racing/Transformed and Generations both being great. They may not be Sonic 2 good, but I'd say they are among the higher tiers of developers surviving from older gens.

 

[Xenon]

Sega of course.

2nd choice

EA back during the C64 days.

 

[Sohter.Nura]

Sega Genesis era.

I honestly thought this was going to be the first post.

Also, Hudson during SNES era. Or CAPCPOM.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Konami

It seems all they do now is Metal Gear

 

[Izick]

This thread just makes me want a new Sega console all the more.

Spoiler

I wish.

 

[GhaleonQ]

I'm not going to choose a publisher, since I think that's cheating. For developer/publishers, I mean ONLY their developed games (and games in series they created that they outsourced for other titles).

It's honestly not Lovedelic. Sega has the biggest fall of any, and I would stand the most to gain even though I'm not a superfan of Sega the arcade/console/handheld developer. I adore Irem and Konami, but they largely did things BETTER than the competition, not new things.

It's S.N.K. Everything that they did they did more interestingly than the competition. Name a genre. I'd likely rather play S.N.K.'s version than the consensus favorite. It would be fun to resurrect Lovedelic or glory days greats, but I don't think they'd develop the industry bit-by-bit while still putting out substantial games. S.N.K. is my ideal mid-tier developer, and they largely followed the mid-tier developer path (read: died last generation). That the sum of their output now is 1 The King Of Fighters every 2 years ravages my interest in video games. (If I included S.N.K.-published, we're talking an outright game changer. A.D.K. and Nazca are SO underrated.)

 

[CRY_ON]

cavia

 

[Spongebob]

Square Enix, no competition here.

 

[Skiptastic]

Really tough to decide between Sega (Dreamcast or Genesis era) or N64 era Rare.

 

[Mobius 1]

Squaresoft.

 

[bede-x]

I wish Rare and Sega returned to their former glory, giving us sequels to Banjo, Perfect Dark and whatever enticingly different creation Sega would come up with.