More iPhone Game Devs Than Nintendo DS, Sony PSP

[Paul Daniel Ash]

More developers are working on games for the iPhone than either the Nintendo DS or the Sony PlayStation Portable, according to a new survey by Game Developer Research. And about the same number, the study says, are abandoning Wii development as are working on iPhone titles, suggesting a potential shift in the industry.

The 2009/2010 State of Game Development Survey is a research study done by Game Developer Research, a project of the editors of Game Developer magazine. The survey focused on 800 game developers in North America and aims to gain insight into which platforms game developers are working on, which tools they use and how much they spend on them, and tries to figure out why developers concentrate on specific platforms over other ones.

The most significant shift shown in the report is the proportion of developers who are creating games for mobile devices: 25% of the respondents said that they were working on a mobile title. This is twice as many as reported the same last year. Of that group, 75 % of them say they are working on and iPod Touch games. The total number of iPhone developers is more than twice the number making games for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable.

About 70 percent of the survey participants said they were working on at least one game for the PC or Mac, including browser and social games, which represented a slight increase from the number in last year's report.

The developers said that ease of development and the size of the market were the primary factors influencing why they chose to focus on a particular platform. Other considerations included the specific skills of the programmers on their team, how easy it is to reuse code from one platform on another, and the costs of SDKs and other materials.

The survey selected participants from people who read Gamasutra, subscribe to Game Developer magazine, or attended the Game Developers Conference.

image via iPhoneFootprint

[Jgamble317]

What is that God awful thing in the middle??

[joshWUa]

Good

[EMH]

What is that God awful thing in the middle??

Agreed, what does that thing have to do with the article?

[lolcats1]

the new nintendo DS better be crazy good, or no one is going to buy it.

18 million ipod touches, all in the hands of 21 - 14 year olds, and they can get mindless games for a few dollars, instead of having to drive to the store, and pay 30 bucks for a game you can't test out.

[awesomeSlayer]

Will this mean more chances of getting shovelware?

[Nintendo Tim]

Uhh...wouldn't it have anything to do with the iPhone's SDK being, what, free?

Of course, you'll have to pony up $100-300 just to submit the game (depending if you're a single dev or a team), but that's a hell of a lot cheaper than the thousands of dollars spent on a dev kit for any major gaming platform.

[adsonjustin]

interesting....

[MetallicaFan1991]

I see a DS, I see an iPhone, I see no PSP but I see some other thing that's not even related to the article. That isn't a PSP btw, fyi

[whereswaldo]

I m not a psp owner, but that is definatly not one

[sziklassy]

This really isn;t surprising, nor is it worth touting in my opinion. Generally speaking large consoles like the Playstation, DS, etc. will only have larger game devs (ie Konami, Capcom, Square, etc.) Many of these game devs are developing for the iPhone as well, however we also have a bunch of "no names" that really have no chance in hell making things for these big consoles where they currently stand. While it is cool, I don't think that it is really a statistic that means a WHOLE lot.

[CZroe]

I sure hope pauldanielash didn't think that was a PSP.

That said, it has a lot more to do with the fact that any little crossword, Where's Waldo, or Sudoku-like app counts as making you a "game developer."

[ultimatexpka]

The thing in the middle looks like the PSP phone i heard about 4 years ago, Some article was talking about sony making a psp phone.

[Truckerbear]

What is that God awful thing in the middle??

Its a wonderful rendering of PSP Phone by T3.UK (based on original patent picture)

Not a real phone it was just a concept PSP phone.

[StealthBravo]

Its a nasty concept

[SquareWheel]

Well, the new DS has an online store I believe, but the games are generally of higher and thus more expensive.

edit: My quote disappeared. =|

[tudtran]

iPhone game is more profitable because of the high downloads

[DMT]

nobody knows wtf is that thing in the middle?

[Nintendo Tim]

nobody knows wtf is that thing in the middle?

I'm pretty sure that was an artists rendition of what they thought the PSP (the original, "phat" PSP-1000) was going to look like before Sony announced it.

That, or a mock-up of the Mylo, Sony's ill-fated - and design basis - predecessor to the PSPgo.

Either way, it's ugly as all hell.

[vegassteven]

That is not surprising in the least. The dev kit for a ds or psp is far more of an investment than apples fee and some "how to make an app" book.

But which platform has better games. Right now it's still nintendo by a small margin but in a years time who knows