10 of the richest publishers in video games this generation

Gaming is the biggest sector of the entertainment industry these days. This is in no small part due to the high profit, high investment nature of the industry. Without vast funding literally thrown at projects by the publishers, we wouldn’t see any of our favourite AAA titles that we take for granted. With that in mind we pay our respects to ten publishers who are paying the cost to be the boss.

10. Sony

Loads of big PS3 exclusives = loads of cash for Sony

It’s easy for a publisher to soar commercially when they have their own console. That said, Sony have a long history of publishing some great franchises. A large majority of the more bad ass PS3 exclusives come at the hand of Sony and, with their Move motion controller starting to take off, it looks like they’re set to earn a mint from the games they’ll publish in the coming year.

9. Microsoft

With so many upcoming Kinect titles, MS are bound to rake in the profit

Microsoft, much like Sony, have the monopoly on publishing rights for the big 360 exclusives. Your Gears of Wars and Halos are all making MS a very rich publisher indeed. With big exclusives lined up for 2011, along with the Kinect revolution still going strong, this trend looks set to continue for some time yet.

8. Sega

Though they have their ups and downs, Sega make a hell of a lot of games

Sega have generally suffered a fall from grace in the past decade or so. That said, the bigger they, are the harder they fall. Yet, despite being relegated from one of the major players in the hardware game to a mere third party developer and publisher, Sega have a huge amount of titles under their belt. Though they might not have the same critical presence as other publishers in this list, all of their properties combined are bound to equal some serious wonga.