No, It's not Ubisoft. There casual efforts on DS and especially the Wii have fallen off considerably. The President of Ubisoft even stated this and also said that they needed to start advertisng their casual games. The Imagine Franchise had some hits early on but then the sales seemed to trail off. Ubisoft started to milk their Imagine series and just like the Music genre  but lacked the quality control. As a result consumers have turned away in large numbers.

The winner this gen is Activision. They've supported all consoles and a portable with their core and casual efforts. Not many third parties can claim that title. Just look at their games on the Xbox 360, PS3, the Wii and the DS and no other third party comes close.

The "merge" didn't work that way.

Activision and Blizzard are still seperate companies, that are (mainly) managed differently, but are both owned by Vivendi.

True.  Vivendi is still the parent company of Blizzard, but now the CEO is Bobby Kotick.  ::shivers::

for a developer, level 5 with the layton games and the dragon quest 9 selling big time

Oh wait I forgot...

It's definitely MAJESCO.

They went to the brink of bankruptcy this gen, like many other developers, but unlike the rest, they made an insane comeback with Cooking Mama, and created a cash cow, which EA is already shamelessly ripping off with Science Papa.

When starcraft 2 is released Blizzard wins!

It's really hard to say. Many publishers are big winners this generation Sega, UbiSoft , ActivisionBlizzard. But I'd say the big winner this generation has been UbiSoft. I'll give some of the reasons below.

1) UbiSoft is the first third party to have taken advantage of the Wii and DS. Their Imagine/Petz titles and their other titles have turned massive profits at little to know over head.

2) UbiSoft has become so powerful that EA tried to take over the company and failed in its attempt. Thats right at the time EA was the biggest publisher in the world and they tried to take on UbiSoft and they lost.

3) As already said UbiSoft has managed to produce two big new IP's RedSteel, AssasinsCreed not to mention expanding on existing IP's like SplinterCell,FarCry and RainbowSix.

4)UbiSoft has begun developing hardware to back its software like the new camera they made for Wii.

5)UbiSoft's marketshare has grown robustly making it I believe it was one of the top five most successful publishers

How has activision killed their franchises? First of all to begin with they are not a big publisher of original IP's. They produce a lot of licensed games which is a huge money maker. Second their last installment of the COD brand was the biggest launch in video game history and the Guitar Hero brand sold about on par with the no doubt very expensive Beatles Licensed rock band(if you count PS2 GH5 outsold B:RB).

Other than that they still have had no signs of the Warcraft money machine letting up and they have been building huge amounts of hype for their upcoming Starcraft franchise.

There is no signs of the COD brand letting up anytime soon. If you don't think non modern Warfare COD games wont crack 10 mill in sales you are wrong. WAW may not be as good as MW but it is still a hugely successful franchise and will continue to sell well. Not only that both of their franchises COD and GH are both primed for the very lucrative DLC market. They will no doubt make a lot of money on DLC that other games may not have figured out how to apitalize on yet(i.e. Assassin's Creed). They will also keep bringing in fresh and old licensed titles that will surely keep selling.

EA on the other hand looks like a company with it's head cut off. One year it's focusing on established franchises, next it's licensed and top sellers, then it's original IP now it's back to the basics with established franchises. They can never make up their mind.

I think Ubisoft and Bethesda(on a personal level) have also been big winners this generation but not as big as Activision/Blizzard.

He's the CEO of Vivendi?!?!?!?!

...:(

Activision blizzard or ubisoft !!!! :D