It’s no secret that Nintendo enjoyed an incredible first year on the market with the Nintendo Switch. Between taking home Game of the Year honors with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the platform boasts an incredible first party lineup that includes Super Mario Odyssey, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Splatoon 2, and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle.
Just ahead of GDC 2018, the pre-show developers poll has gotten its results, and it is showing a much higher interest in the platform going forward.
Per GI.Biz, 12% of the developers polled said that they are currently making games for the Switch, with 15% saying that their next game will come to the platform. While these numbers don’t look all that impressive, it’s important to understand that just a year ago, this same poll showed that only 3% of developers were making games for Switch, while 5% said that their next game would be. An increase of roughly 10% on each category is pretty astounding, all things considered.
However, all was not rosy in this year’s poll as there was a significant drop in interest for both VR and AR games among developers. 19% of developers reported that they were making games for VR headsets, which was a drop from 24% a year ago. Developers expecting to have their next game be VR also saw a similar drop from 23% in 2017 to 17% this year.
This isn’t to say that VR or AR are dying breeds; quite the opposite. 71% of developers said that they were still confident that the platform was sustainable for long-term success. It just goes to show that neither VR nor AR has found that must-have killer app just yet. Hopefully, that day is coming soon.
GDC 2018 runs from Monday, March 19th through Friday, March 23rd in San Francisco, CA.
