nintendo

This is easy, my vote goes to Square Enix. I love JRPGs and Square have made many of my favourites. Final Fantasy is my favourite franchise, the games look beautiful and have amazing stories. FFVIII is the best game I have ever played, although FFX comes very close.

"FFVIII is the best game I have ever played, "

Sorry bud, but ff8 was not that great. Play more games if thats the best game you ever played.

 I said it was the best game that I have ever played. Believe it or not, other people might not agree with with your idea of what is great. I love Squall and Rinoa, and I really liked the draw/junction thing in the game. Although I guess part of the reason why I love FFVIII so much is because it was the my first Final Fantasy. I've noticed that the first FF that anyone plays is always their favourite. 

Square makes great games although I have kind of gotten tired of them- as their killer games are basicly the same as they have been since the beginning- menus. But ask yourself do you think Square/ Enix's games could support two game systems almost on its own for 10 years? In Japan yes but World Wide?
I have always admired Squares/Enix's production values though and I think their competition has been a great influence on Nintendo and the industry. In order to compete with them I think Nintendo started putting more into their stories and adding dramatic cut scenes.

I don't know I guess it doesn't matter all- I should say is I that I vote Nintendo.
Smash Brothers, Fire Emblem!, MP3, and Zelda kill the horse... Pikmin, SM Galaxy, and possible Baten Kaitos 3/ Xeno Saga/ Disaster beats the dead horse.

I also played 8 as my first =) and it is one of my favorites, but i played 7 next and i loved it, just a little more because the draw thing in 8 was a little boring and 7 was just fantastic, but yes 8 is a great game and i hate people who just says it sucks, we all have opinions

You've ruined my theory about everyone enjoying their first FF the most. Oh well.
VII was the second FF I played as well and I really enjoyed it, but that part about Cloud being crazy put me off a little. I just don't think that part was very well told, other than that I thought the story was great.

I'm the only person I know who enjoyed drawing in VIII. It just made boss fights more challenging, instead of killing them quickly you'd have to try to survive their attacks while stealing as many powerful spells as you needed. I also really liked the limits, you had to risk running around with dangerously low HP in order to use your characters strongest attacks. Plus, the monsters leveled up with you which stopped combat from becoming too easy and boring. It was a great game, I'm feeling quite nostalgic now. I'll go to watch some AMVs.

EDIT: Here is a good AMV.

This has given me an idea for a thread.  

Nintendo. All the way. Though it would be nice to have more SE games on Nintendo.

Nintendo. While there have been companies whose content has been more consistantly good, there are none that have had the volume of AAA titles and the broad gameplay impact that Nintendo has.

Last generation, the only good games to come out of the Square half of Square-Enix were FFXII and Kingdom Hearts, and FFXII was more or less done by Quest (AKA ultimate tactical RPG badasses. AKA way more hardcore than Square ever was). They raped all of their other franchises. Enix and their subsidaries is put out some pretty solid stuff (DQVIII, VPII, etc.)

If you had asked me at the end of the 16 Bit era, I'd have been torn, even with Nintendo putting out three of the best games of all time that generation (Super Metroid, LTTP and SMW). Oh Final Fantasy VI/III...

" Nintendo. While there have been companies whose content has been more consistantly good,"

Do you mean companies that only put out a few games but they all are beyond awesome, like Blizzard?  I don't think there are any major publishers (i.e. ones with lots of games released) with a better track record, and I would like like you to name any that exist so I can buy their libraries. :P