Survey Reveals Developers Are More Interested In Making Nintendo Switch Games

With the Nintendo Switch reaching new sales heights over the past few months, more developers and publishers are becoming open to the idea of bringing their hit games to the platform. And a new survey conducted by the organizers of the Game Developers Conference has given a hint just how much interest has improved over the past year.

According to GamesIndustry International, the survey indicates that 12 percent of developers polled are making games for the Nintendo Switch, while 15 percent believe their next game will appear on the platform at one point. While that doesn't seem like gangbusters numbers, keep in mind that, at this same time last year, only three percent of polled developers were making games for the system, while five percent believed their game would show up. So there is interest growing in it.

On top of that, 36 percent of the developers polled said it's listed on the platforms that they're most interested in developing for, with PC at 59 percent and PlayStation 4 at 39 percent.

There were other numbers revealed with the poll as well. 28 percent of multiplatform developers noted that their games were actually selling better on the Nintendo Switch, compared to other systems; and 23 percent noted that sales on the system were above average. Only 16 percent felt that the game sales on the Switch were lacking compared to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Not all the systems saw an increase in numbers. Virtual reality development seems to be waning. Last year, 24 percent of developers were releasing a game for VR, with 23 percent believing their game would be ported to it. This year? The numbers are only 19 and 17 percent, respectively. And developers who think virtual and augmented reality is good for long-term business dropped, from 75 to 71 percent.

And one other aspect of polling involved game development, loot boxes, was also asked about. Currently, 11 percent of developers feel that their game would benefit from that business standpoint, although items that got higher percentile include paid downloadable content (23 percent), in-game item sales (22 percent), ads (14 percent) and paid subscriptions (13 percent). So it's definitely on the lower end of the stick.

We'll have to see how these business trends hold up over the course of the year, but the Switch is definitely picking up steam.