This week, the organisers behind the GDC Festival Gaming have unveiled their "State of the Game Industry Report" for 2026, polling over 2,300 game industry professionals on topics including AI, workplace trends and much more.
The bit that's getting attention from an Xbox perspective is a list of platforms that developers are most interested in, with Xbox Series X and S ranking in fifth place with 20% of the vote — behind PC with 80%, PS5 with 40%, Steam Deck with 40% and Nintendo Switch 2 with 39%.
Xbox One was also lower down the list with 9% of the vote, ROG Xbox Ally had 7%, and Xbox Cloud Gaming had 5%.
A separate poll shows that of the 2,300+ developers who were polled for this, 40% of them actually shipped a product on Xbox Series X and S recently, compared to 47% for PS5 and 83% for PC. 23% of them also shipped on Xbox One.
Now, there are definitely some caveats to be aware of here. Firstly, as mentioned, we're only looking at a group of just over 2,000 people that make up these results, so they're not necessarily representitive of the entire industry. It should also be noted that developers don't make games specifically for the ROG Xbox Ally or Xbox Cloud Gaming — the Ally runs PC games and Cloud Gaming streams console games — so it's no surprise that these developers aren't particularly interested in either of them.
In terms of the Series X and S, the results probably do align with the weaker console sales in recent years, but they also suggest that if Microsoft adds Windows to the next Xbox console as rumoured, it's going to be fantastic news for both developers and players alike — think of all the PC exclusives we'll be able to play!