Game Devs Migrating Toward iPhone, Away From Wii

A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly: "Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."

Comments

Why Wii and iPhone developers would differ

[tepples]

The summary seems to create the assumption that the same developers which are abandoning the Wii are moving to the iPhone.

You're likely right. I imagine the recession starting in 2008 has slowed major label video game development in general, and a different group of developers are doing things on the iPhone. Unlike Wii Shop Channel, which requires developers to have a dedicated office and a successful commercial title on another platform, Apple's App Store model (almost an exact copy of Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Games) is much friendlier to 1- and 2-man shops.

Re:False assumption?

[alen]

wrong

each itunes account can support up to 5 computers and as far as i know an unlimited number of idevices like the iphone, ipod or apple TV. you buy something once from the iTunes store and you can play it back on any device associated with that account

Re:False assumption?

[ucblockhead]

Sorry, but that's bullshit. I've had activated computers die more than once. You load up iTunes (on any working machine), go into "account settings" and click "deauthorize all". You can then freely authorize any five computers.

I've done this multiple times. I've had three different machines die when "authorized", done this each time, yet right this moment I have five different machines authorized to play with the same account.