In the modern console wars, the PlayStation 4 has a few more soldiers than the Xbox One does.
In a poll of over 2,000 North American developers who attended 2014’s Game Developer’s Conference, 26 percent of those surveyed said that they are currently working on a PlayStation 4 game. Comparatively, 22 percent said that they were developing an Xbox One game. Still, PC and mobile platforms remain the most popular with those polled at the GDC. Fifty-six percent said that their working on a PC game, and 50 percent said that their current project is for mobile. Both platforms are popular with large and independent studios, due to their relatively more open nature when compared to consoles. The study didn’t post numbers for the Wii U.
Both of these console numbers are up from last year, when 14 percent were working on PS4 and 12 percent on Xbox One. Of course, as both systems are relatively young (they came out in November 2013), seeing more developers switch over from the older Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 isn’t surprising.
The PlayStation 4’s lead against the Xbox One reflects sales performance. Total PlayStation 4 sales have passed 18.5 million after the holiday season. We don’t know how well the Xbox One did over the holiday yet, but Microsoft’s newest console has been lagging behind Sony’s newest hardware, even if just slightly.
You can view the whole report here, which has other interesting stats polled from the GDC attendees, including increases in profits and staff sizes.