Consumers tend to be quite vocal about their chosen platform and demonstrate a great deal of brand loyalty. It makes sense though as investing into one platform and swapping to another is a costly endeavour. During the last few years, developers have gauged the popularity of each system, to try to maximize sales. While consoles are still selling extraordinarily well, it’s difficult to dismiss the rise of mobile gaming and PC. According to the Game Developer’s Conference State of the Industry Report, 52% of developers are currently making a PC game. This is a slight drop from last year’s figure of 56%, but doesn’t really indicate a noticeable shift towards other platforms. In second place was mobile, with 44% of those surveyed outlining their mobile development plans. In a similar vein to PC, this is a drop of 6% from last year.
Rather unsurprisingly, the PlayStation 4 attained third position with 27%, while the Xbox One managed to achieve a very respectable 23%. Towards the lower end of the spectrum, Nintendo’s Wii U only has 5% of developers creating something for the platform. This is shocking and emphasizes how quickly support is dwindling for the Wii U. Furthermore, only 2% of developers are working on 3DS titles, which is down from 3% last year. Clearly, Nintendo is still relying on their exclusive line-up and developers might be working on launch games for the upcoming NX console.
It’s great to see the PC platform having so much support from developers and this isn’t surprising due to the open access model. While digital distribution is still fairly new on consoles, it’s incredibly popular among PC consumers. This provides lower development costs, and there’s greater competition via Steam, GOG and other services. Although, Steam really does have a monopoly on the mainstream market. Hopefully, this trend continues and developers produce a whole host of unique titles on the PC platform.
