With all the rumors and speculation going around about the new XBOX and Playstation, this generation of consoles is most likely coming to an end in the next year or two. Thinking back to all the games that have been released, I noticed that some developers and publishers have certainly had more than their fair successes this gen (like Activision, financially, with the Call of Duty series).

I think Atlus stepped it up a tiny bit this gen as both a developer and a publisher. They brought over Demon's Souls, which turned out to be a huge success to them, when Sony themselves didn't seem to want to publish it themselves. Also, they developed Catherine, which turned out to be quite a surprise to many gamers (I think this was their first big release developed by them this gen). There was also the many ports they did for PSP of Persona games.

Naughty dog and Rocksteady are the first that come to mind, plenty more devs did aswell.

Level-5, Nintendo and Bioware are the 1st 3 to pop to mind

From Software... because their previous games Armored Core (fun but crappy compared to other mech games), enchanted arms, and kings field (didn't like it). Were completley bleh.

They released 2 fantastic games of Darks Souls and Demon Soul's

Infinity Ward/Treyarch/Activizion- COD. The ultimate cash cow and most successful franchise for consoles this generation.

In terms of critical acclaim - Naughty Dog, Irrational Games, Rocksteady and Epic have all produced extremely high quality outings this gen, and sold a very high volume of games to boot.

Naughtydog, FROM software, Suckerpunch, and some others I'm sure.

How could I forget Rocksteady and FROM Software?! The Batman games are both superb and FROM Software with both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls (they also published 3D Dot Game Heroes in Japan).

Nintendo did step it up this gen, but I still think the SNES was their best era.

SCEE and SCEA for sure.

Ubisoft for creating the best new franchise this generation
Rockseady for making two fantastic games
Nintendo for showing that they will always be best at making great games
Monolith for Xenoblade

I think Microsoft did in terms of actually managing to hold onto the second place with a death grip for so long without a fail, despite looking like the most likely candidate to fail after the whole RROD fiasco and the previous iteration of the original Xbox.

Nintendo too, despite the "d0med" talk for several years, the Wii maintained it's best selling home console title until maybe this year - which it may still have a chance to reclaim, but 90m mile stone is pretty impressive, taking into account the previous consoles like Gamecube into account.

I think COD franchise has grown phenomenally and the fact that it keeps smashing it's previous records year after year is a good indication that they're onto something in regards to getting the perfect formula that attracts both hardcore and casuals to purchase their game, like 10 million copies in 24 hours? That's quite insane.