If you remember, SCEA executive Jack Tretton made a statement last E3 regarding Microsoft's methods of "currying favor from third party devs." Well, it certainly looks like this "currying" of Microsoft is clearly working for them, as a survey reveals that the Microsoft Xbox 360 is the platform that gets the most lovin' from platform developers.

The survey was conducted by the Game Developer Research, and had 2,000 respondents from the members of the videogame industry. The objective of the survey was essentially to determine which of the gaming platforms are the developers spending most of their time with. All of the participants were from North America, and they read Game Developer Magazine or gaming industry site Gamasutra.

The results are interesting, and here are the numbers (including cross-platform games):

Consoles

1. Xbox 360 - 73%
2. PS3 - 58%
3. Wii - 42%
4. PS2 - 15%

Handhelds

1. DS - 75%
2. PSP - 45%

Computer

1. PC/Mac - 70%

Now for the analysis of data. It appears that if you take into account the whole of the pie, the PC/Mac is the most popular game development platform, with it taking up 43% of the whole game development pie. However, when it comes to the individual categories, the Xbox 360 is the clear winner for this round with a whopping 73% respondents claiming they are working with the platform.

When it comes to the handhelds categories, Nintendo's DS still reigns supreme by a far stretch from Sony's PSP, wtih 75% of the developers saying they are making games for it.

What do these numbers imply, then? Most certainly, not necessarily which console is better. It merely indicates the number of developers having projects on which platform. But as to the quality of the games being developed, or which console's library will be bigger, it is not determined by this survey.

If you want to check out for yourself the in-depth 180-page report of the survey, click on this link to get to the Game Developer Research website.

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