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Adinnieken on 02 June 2012
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People, all this survey is doing is stating the obvious.

Xbox 360 > Next Xbox development should, based on the rumors, mean the least development hurdles for programmers. The next Xbox is essentially an update, more powerful version of the Xbox 360. Same CPU mfg, same GPU mfg. At the core, no major hurdles.

Wii > Wii U, again based on rumors, should offer a slight learning curve, as well as a challenge in game design. The long-term challenge isn't learning how to take advantage of the hardware, but whether or not the pay off is there to do so. It's either going to be a rush to the gate to develop on the console, or it's going to be a wait and see effort.

PS3 > PS4, if rumors hold true, will offer the steepest learning curve, but one easily managed in a short period of time. With the PS4, it'll just be a matter of learning new APIs, not how to program code for a completely foreign computer architecture. Everything developers have learned from the Xbox 360, and will learn from the Wii U and next Xbox will apply to the PS4.

After a year or two, the games available across the three platforms (multi-platform third-party games) will be very similar and perform much the same. The only difference may be they take advantage of unique abilities of each console.

Nothing in this article is worth getting upset over. Nothing doesn't make sense, but it's also not a long-term issue.

For Nintendo fans, what is most important thing will be sales of the Wii U hardware and software during its first year. If the console takes off, then third-parties will adopt it.

For Sony fans, the most important thing to take to heart is that if rumors hold true, the days of difficult, time consuming development are behind PlayStation developers and they'll be able to spend more time customizing third-party games for each console than delaying them to try to finish up the development for one platform or another.

For Microsoft fans, you know the drill. Sit back, keep quiet, and let the chips fall where they may. Microsoft is a developer centric company, and the Xbox platform is no different. There's no reason to get concerned. Just don't stir the pot and get the other two camps boiling over.

We are in for our most evenly matched gaming generation in ages. It would not surprise me if that at the end of this next generation, all three companies have very similar sales figures.