well blizz is not really a surprise.... as long as WoW lives it'll be the most profitable VS development.... Wow is like a 2M selling game every month (full price).... Nintendo does more but with many more games...

Rather interestingly, Take Two can't post a profit even when they control the third most bankable studio.

It could also have something to do with why MS is keeping their first party development lean. If you have a great, creative and very capable development team that sticks together for a long time, their salaries swell, and over time, development costs can skyrocket. Then suddenly you're selling 2m+ copies of games just to break even.

(Although, considering that they have a game that sell boatloads like the GTA series does suggest mismanagement thrown in to boot)

Activison Blizzard is even more miss managed than Take Two or maybe the same level,

Last year they made 108 million loss check here http://investor.activision.com/annuals.cfm (search for net income) and also http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainment/Guitar+Hero+fails+save+Activision/1282107/story.html

they blamed meger costs while Square Enix, Sega Sammy and NAmco Bandai all made huge profits in the year they merged, with even much less sales and without the 100s of millions from online games, I guess Activision Blizzard lose all these 100s of millions on exceive advertising to make their games hits while they are not, also  so they can brag alot about revenue in all sites/magazines they tried to decieve sites in this 1st quarter by using net revenue while their net income is a lose,

also they depend on reporting non-gaap results (means  Non Generally Accepted Accounting Principles also means deffered revinue) which investors don't don't belive so thats why their stock goes so much down after each finincial announcment,

but god their viral advertisment is so strong that no gamers know abou how badly managed their company is only investors,

I guess vivindi push, and their games being alwyes on the top NPD fools people.

also people when a company announce result check net income or profit not revenue make sure the profit is GAAP profit too,  for few years now all western game companies made losses except UBI while all Japanese Companies made profit except Sega in 2008.

BTW if Blizzard are doing this amazingly well why did they merge?

I guess that really isn't much of a surprise though. WoW and every other game they've made in the past 14-15 years has been a huge hit.

Easily my favourite developer.

I'm surprised to see EA Canada up there. What else do they make other than the NHL series?

I think Blizzard was very well run, and at this point it's basically Activision's cash cow. (They'd be in a lot of trouble without it)

And I think the "merger" like most mergers was Blizzard being bought out. And even if they would have liked to stay seperate, unfortunately they're required to appease shareholders.

Treyarch is higher than Infinity Ward -.- they get such a bad rap though.