Nintendo and level 5 for me.

Atlus
Nintendo
Square-Enix
Naughty Dog

Atlus/ Persona studio
Blizzard
Treyarch
Platinum Games
DICE
Bungie
Bandai Namco

I don't really care that much, to be honest.

It's like with music, where I see people become mega-fans of a band or singer, while I'm more of a fan of individual songs. Yeah, there are bands that have a LOT of songs I like, but I still don't develop the same kind of attachment I've seen others form. Like, this is a bit off-topic, but I remember talking with this girl who had Grateful Dead bumper stickers and t-shirts, so I started mentioning some of their songs I liked. She looked kind of lost for a few moments before saying, "I'm sorry, I don't know much about their music."

Therefore, my focus is more on liking games and game worlds. Even inside gaming franchises, though, I might both like and dislike select titles.

I can see holding up studios somewhat, if they've never made a game that I did not enjoy, but I can't think of any publisher who hasn't put out sub-par products or made moves that were obviously for profit.

I kinda see your point. Post 7th gen, I've found myself liking Valve and CDProjekt more than most, not only due to consistency in overall quality of releases, but mostly due to what they represent in the industry and the way they've made things easier for gamers and modders as well as smaller developers. And then there are publishers who only adopt malignant policies towards consumers, like Ubisoft and EA.

Today, being a somewhat grumpy old gamer, publishers who try to make the industry as a whole a better place both for consumers and developers get a huge star in my book.

Monolith Soft. I only pray I feel the same way after Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

My favorite publisher/developer would be the one with the most number of IP's that I like under its belt so... Nintendo. Obviously I like games made by other companies too (Mostly indies nowadays though), but it's always like 1 or 2 franchises from each of them that I like, so it's no contest really.

Used to be Squaresoft, now it's Nintendo.

Nintendo.

Undoubtedly Sony for publishing.

Naughty Dog and Insomniac for developing.