Just curious to see what developers everyone here likes. Basically, who are the developers that make the games you always buy? Just in case some of you aren't familiar with some developers of the big games, I'll make a small list of some developers and the games they're known for. For simplicity sake, I'll probably group several development teams together, probably by their publisher (Kojima Productions->Konami, Team Ninja->Tecmo, Bungie->Microsoft, etc.): EA: I think most everyone knows about EA. They make all the EA sports games, Need For Speed, SSX (and other EA Big games), some of the James Bond games (I think), MOH, The Sims, and tons more. They also bought Criterion (Burnout series, upcoming FPS called Black) and are pretty close to acquiring DICE (Battlefield series). Ubisoft: Splinter Cell series, Prince of Persia series, Far Cry, Tom Clancy games. Square-Enix: All Final Fantasy games, all Dragon Quest/Warrior games, Star Ocean series, Kingdom Hearts series, Front Mission series, Chrono Trigger/Chross. Namco-Bandai: Pac-Man, Tekken, Soul Calibur, "Tales Of ___" games, Ridge Racer, Ace Combat, Katamari Damacy, Gundam games (or anything else based on Bandai anime I guess) Konami: Metal Gear series, Castlevania, Contra, Suikoden, some music games (DDR, Beatmania, etc.), Silent Hill series, Winning Eleven/Pro Evolution Soccer games. Capcom: Mega Man, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Breath of Fire series, Onimusha, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe Tecmo: Ninja Gaiden series, Dead Or Alive series, Rygar, Fatal Frame series (I think) and of course Tecmo Super Bowl. Take Two (including Rockstar): The GTA games, Manhunt, The Warriors, Midnight Club, Max Payne, Red Dead Revolver, 2K Sports games (NBA 2K6, NHL 2K6, Links, etc.), Sid Meier games. Midway: Mortal Kombat, The Suffering, sports games like Blitz, MLB Slugfest, NBA Jam (I think), etc. Atlus: Disgaea series, Shin Megami Tensei/Digital Devil Saga series, some other lesser-known RPGs I'm forgetting at the moment. Blizzard: Warcraft/Starcraft series and the Diablo series iD: Doom series, Quake series, Castle Wolfenstein games Valve: Half-Life and Half-Life 2 as well as some of the mods to those games (Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, etc.) Bioware: Neverwinter Nights series, Jade Empire, Knights of the Old Republic, Baldurs Gate Bethesda: The Elder Scrolls series. Enough said. Sega: Sonic, Virtual Fighter, Shenmue, Panzer Dragoon, Phantasy Star Microsoft Studios (including Bungie and Rare): Age of Empires series, Dungeon Siege series, Halo series, Fable, Forza series, Project Gotham Racing, Kameo (Rare), late Oddworld games, Perfect Dark series (Rare) Nintendo: Mario/Zelda/Metroid games, Pikmin series, Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Nintendogs, Advance War, Super Smash Brothers games, Animal Crossing, Star Fox. Sony (guess I'll include Sony Online Entertainment, but they're a bit different): Everquest series (SOE), Star Wars Galaxies (SOE), Jak/Ratchet/Sly games, God of War, Gran Turismo series, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Ape Escape, Hot Shots, SOCOM, Twisted Metal, Wipeout, Killzone series (oh no!!! memories of E3 CGI debates!!!), Getaway series There's some more, but I'll leave it at that. For me, I've always followed where Square (now Square-Enix) went. For the past couple of years, I've started to appreciate games made by other developers a lot more, but I'm still largely dependent on games made by Square-Enix, in particular the Final Fantasy series. Barring some sort of massive drop in quality in the series, I'm pretty sure I'd buy any console that had the Final Fantasy main series as an exclusive. I'm not sure I could say that for any other game/developer. Some other favorites of mine are Konami (MGS, Suikoden and Silent Hill games), Take Two (GTA and the 2K Sports games), Sony (God of War, Ico/SOTC, Gran Turismo, some of their RPGs), Atlus (pretty much any of their RPGs), and Bethesda (TES games).
I'd have to go with VALVe or iD... I'm a FPS mad-man. Blizzard is a great developer though, even though I really only enjoy one of their games (World of Warcraft). Sign me up for some Microsoft and Ubisoft too
Nintendo. They're by far the best developer. Square-Enix would be second, but really outside of Final Fantasy a lot of their games are hit or miss. After that it's just a matter of the individual game. Sony does have a good record but I really don't take special note of any of their games just becuase it's being made by Sony. And Atlus seems to be just reskinning the same game and selling it over and over again (at least with the SRPG's they've been releasing recently).
Tecmo and Valve and SNK; only three games I've ever been addicted to-- Tecmo Super Bowl, Counterstrike, and Baseball Stars
Lucas Arts.. Maniac Mansion Monkey Islands Indiana Jones Full Throttle I never have liked all the Star Wars stuff they do though.. I loved Mercenaries that just came out this past year.. GREAT GAME.. Capcom.. I picked up Resident Evil 4 for the gamecube a few months ago and I got so hooked I bought the other 0-4 and i'm now working on them.. Great line of games..
Nintendo- own a Cube Capcom- RE4 restored my faith in games.... id- not sure if they're still independent, but ATI and Nvidia should pay them a tax for every 3D card out Blizzard- know what fun games mean Valve- Halflife 2
Black Isle Software with their Fallout and Fallout 2 games. Easily the most revolutionary games I've ever played.
1. Interplay - Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Icewind Dale - best RPG company ever (Black Isle is/was a division of Interplay) 2. Bioware - loved NWN and expansions 3. Take Two - 2K Sports games and GTA games 4. Microsoft - Halo (I think Marathon was before Microsoft got involved with Bungie though), AoE, not as many games as an EA, but solid quality) 5. Blizzard - loved the WarCraft and StarCraft franchises, have been playing a free trial of WoW and it is the only MMORPG I could ever stand.
Well pretty much everything I have on Xbox is stamped with the EA logo...then a few XSN and Bungie titles. And then Nintendo cause I have a Cube.
I think you need to point out the difference between publishing and developing. Naughty Dog developes the Jak and Daxter games and Insomniac Games developes Ratchet and Clank. Oh, and on Nintendo's side, Retro Studios does the Metroid Prime games.
As I said, I decided to lump some studios together by the name of their publisher. Just going by dev studios for Sony alone, you have Guerilla, Sony LA (forget their exact name...Sony Santa Monica or something), Zipper, Insomniac (not sure if Sony owns them or not), Naughty Dog, Incognito, 989 Studios, Team SOHO, Polyphony Digital, Level 5 (don't think Sony owns them either, but seems like a strong relationship), the Eyetoy team, and a bunch of others I probably forgot (hehe...probably SCEA, SCEE, and SCEJ left). Most of the MGS games are by various studios as well I think (Ensemble, Bungie, Bizarre, Big Blue Box/Lionhead, Rare, etc.). It just seemed easier to just lump them together as Sony/Microsoft 1st and 2nd party studios instead of listing each one individually. Of course, if someone likes just the Jak and Daxter games, feel free to give props to Naughty Dog instead of Sony. I was just giving a basic list for people to use if they didn't know who made the games they liked.
Atlus - Loved Kartia, Brigadine on Ps1 Square - Final Fantasy RPGs and Final Fantasy Tactics Bethesda - Elder Scrolls series
I play almost exclusively RPGs and Madden, so it's basically a tie between Square-Enix and EA Sports.
