1. Nintendo

Year formed: 1933

Headquarters: Kyoto, Japan

Studios: Intelligent Systems (Kyoto); Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development (Tokyo); Nintendo Software Technology Corp. (Redmond, Wash.); Retro Studios (Austin); Systems Research & Development (Kyoto, Osaka); Brownie Brown (Tokyo); NDCUBE (Tokyo); Monolith Soft (Tokyo)

Surging revenues generated by an extremely strong stable of first-party releases for Wii and DS have allowed Nintendo to maintain its hold on the top spot this year, following last year's upset over EA.

The DS continued to dominate the portable market, and Nintendo's software for the platform consistently sold more than that of any other publisher.

Indeed, Nintendo's revenues were the highest of any publisher this year across all platforms, despite a relatively modest release schedule for the year.

Software revenues were up 46 percent and profits up 48 percent this year compared with 2007, and sales were a good 43 percent higher than nearest competitor EA's revenues.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl was Nintendo's biggest seller this year, having sold 15 million copies to date. Brain Age 2, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, and Wii Fit also contributed to Nintendo's smashing success. And once again, Nintendo's games also found favor with critics, receiving the sixth-highest average review score this year.

The publisher garnered the highest average scores out of both our reputation survey and our detailed survey.

Readers praised Nintendo for "doing a great job of expanding the market," and commenting developers called the publisher "a pleasure to work with" and "far more personable than the other manufacturers."

This indicates that Nintendo is, at least somewhat, bucking the company's traditional "don't call us, we'll call you" approach to developer relations. As third party publishers continue to figure out Nintendo's hardware, future listings are anyone's guess. But for now, Nintendo rules the roost.

Nintendo's Mario Kart Wii