Sony touts dev headcount equal to ‘Nintendo and Microsoft combined’

If there’s one partly-entertaining/partly-disheartening aspect to the current hardware generation, it’s the PR back and forth of soundbites and rhetoric thrown back and forth between the American camps of the format-holders.

The latest is a corker. Talking to VG247, Sony’s hardware marketing head John Koller has boasted that the PlayStation development teams out-number Microsoft and Nintendo combined.

“Our development studios – the Worldwide Studios team – is as large as Microsoft and Nintendo’s combined,” he said, talking to the popular blog at GDC.

This vast operation has set the Sony platforms up for creating a string of hits that will roll out over the next few years, he added.

“We have a tremendously creative group, and a line-up for the next few years that will bring a lot of new IP to the market, but will also being a lot of [tried and tested] franchises and new iterations to the PS3 in particular, but also PSP,” the exec added.

Develop understands that Sony has in excess of 2,000 development staff across its SCEE, SCEA and SCEJ divisions, creating on games like God of War 3, Killzone 2, Gran Turismo and SingStar.

Nintendo’s Kyoto base houses over 1,200 development staff, and is responsible for the likes of Wii Fit, Wii Play, Mario Kart and Brain Training and many other hits.

Microsoft’s now slimmer development operation is reportedly around 1,000 – including the Rare, Lionhead and London teams in the UK, and its US teams.