Me and four friends are founding a small freelance game design studio, part of a netowrk of sites i am creating. We are basically n00bs in the game dev business so we are currently learning c++, graphic design etc. We are looking for a small publisher that will not take all of our profits. Will be able to obtain dev kits for playstation or xbox and is pretty flexible. we do not want to be run by someone else we want as much freedom as possible. We can handle Marketing/PR if needed.

Sorry but your plan is a total non-starter. That is like saying you will start a restaurant, find the premises, have it fitted out and THEN decide to learn to cook.

No publisher will give you any money or development kit if you don't have a proven track record developing games. You have to be official Sony/MS/Nintendo approved developers to get kit (it isn't down to the publishers) and those companies won't be interested if you are noobs. In addition when you have got enough experience it will still have to be YOU who has to find the money to buy the kit.

Forget "starting a company" and forget Playstation and Xbox - go away and learn to program/do art/music/make a game on a platform that you can get access to (PC). You don't even know if you will actually enjoy development or be any good at it. When you can make games then consider starting a business.

/me claps

It's a shame...everyone has to start somewhere and usually the first lesson to learn is the hardest:- there is no money and no help (apart from solid info from forums) for noobs.

Take Dan's advice, get jobs, make games in your spare time, do networking and lots of research...in a couple of years time, you may be ready....

i relise now, i am currently creating a design document and i will study more C++ as soon as i get my new laptop! my current pc wont run most things