Here Are The Most Important Gaming Platforms Of 2019, Just In Time For GDC

Just in time for Game Developers Conference 2019, we have a bunch of stats from Statista about game consoles and development platforms that should pique your curiosity.

So behold!

Here’s a breakdown of the survey that involved 4,000 game developers:

• PC is obviously the highest with 60% most interest in and 66% currently developing games for.
• The Nintendo Switch gets the biggest difference in stats: it has 45% of devs interested in the device, but only have 18% working on games for it.
• Following behind respectively are the PS4, iOS/Android mobile/tablet devices, and the Xbox One.
• VR and AR headsets show the most interest from developers, but even fewer who want to develop games for it.
• As for the Mac, 14% are interested while 20% are developing games for it. Most likely ports of PC games.

Here are my takeaways:

• PC will always be top dog in these kinds of reports because every game developer starts off building their game via a PC anyway, regardless of whether they’re using Unreal Engine or Unity. Unless you have a console exclusivity clause, they’ll default to a PC version.
• I’m not sure if there are major updates to the Nintendo Switch game dev scene, but I heard these dev kits from the company are pricey and possible unintuitive. Hence the low game dev numbers for this year. Nintendo may need to change up its third-party development policy if they want more people making games for the Switch.
• PS4, mobile, and Xbox One development stats are pretty much standard; no major shakeups.
• VR and AR game development is at the bottom three of this chart. This further proves that unless you can make a compelling experience and the price of headsets are slashed to reasonable levels, this portion of gaming will forever remain a niche. 

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