Since nearly the dawn of gaming, console wars have been a major focus in the industry. Fans argue over which console has the best exclusive games, and companies themselves battle it out to sell the most units in any given hardware generation. Potentially adding fuel to the console wars fire is a new survey that determines the preferred gaming platform by US state, which claims Xbox is the most popular in 27 US states, versus 10 states each for Nintendo and PlayStation, and three states for PC.
The survey was conducted by PCMag, who surveyed 2,033 customers in the US to gather its data. The end result was that 31 percent of those surveyed preferred Xbox and the Xbox One, 28 percent preferred PlayStation and the PS4, 21 percent preferred Nintendo and the Switch, and 20 percent said they preferred PC gaming over consoles. Some of those surveyed chose not to identify as gamers at all, which could have had an impact on data.
Something else that should be noted was that some of the states were "close calls," as described by PCMag. For example, Nintendo beat PlayStation in Utah by less than 1 percent, and Xbox beat PlayStation by only 2 percent in California. Considering the small sample size, it's safe to say that had more people been surveyed, the results in at least some of the states would have been different, and those states would have potentially been declared for another platform.
Something else to keep in mind is that the Nintendo Switch is not necessarily competing directly with PlayStation and Xbox. On the contrary, the Switch and Xbox have been friendly so far, with the primary sales battle clearly between Sony and Microsoft's consoles. The Switch not really being entangled in the ongoing console war could have had an impact on data, not to mention its relative newness compared to the PS4 and Xbox One.
A lot of different factors could have impacted the data, and the small sample size also means people should consider the results with some healthy skepticism. Even so, the survey is interesting, and perhaps an indication that Xbox has successfully fixed its image that was tarnished after the disastrous Xbox One reveal, or is still riding on the success of the Xbox 360.