I've been saying since January that there will be a sequencal decline (generation wise) in handheld and console gaming revenue with this new generation.

You don't even have to look that far.

Retailers:
Gamestop: closing more stores this year than opening
Best Buy: closing 50 stores by May, more later this year
Radio shack: Struggling
Retail landscape for gaming outlets is shrinking and will continue to do so this year and for the foreseeable future.

Companies:
Pretty much every gaming company has struggled for the better part 12 years, with slight blips through that time. With this new generation coming up, there really cant be no room for failures, production and licensing costs are just too high.

Because in the case of these analysts, that is the segment of the market in which they specialize.

Thus, they are trumping what they know/represent over what it competes ggainst.

Think about it.

Mike from Morgantown

If there's one left that it's not doomed yet believe me that it will be before august, now that seems to be a good thing i mean nintendo has been doomed like 5 times in the last 3 years, the automobile industry, Real Madrid... being doomed isn't necesary a bad thing lol. Now to the thread, i think that in fact they will do better.

Ya we can all guess lol

.....they will have to throw more $$$ in advertisements. =X

Yeah count me in as another one who believes next gen will be smaller.
Its obvious now with handholds , 3ds & vita selling worse but the same is going to happen with homeconsoles, this gen will end up between 300 and 400 million next gen will struggle to reach 250 million

Oh yes, 100.000.000 it seems big by just looking at it but i think people has never been more exited to see a new gen, despite what everyone says... it's just that people don't realize yet how much they want a new generation of consoles, when they see it they will embrace it you'll remember my words. Now, there's more people in the world, the crescent market for smartphones and tablets it's no threat simply because gamers won't move to a worse platform aaaand assuming that the time comes (you name the reason) when Smp/tab can keep up (at every single aspect) with consoles I know many gamers that would not change their 40' Tv's and hometheaters for an Ipad, btw how much is the better smartphone out there?-- whatever, market it's doing nothing but expand, despite financial ''Crysis'' (:D) the 3DS it's outselling the DS (and it will outsell it in his lifespan -you can screenshot->print->frame this-). Gaming industry it's growing, devs are growing, gamer are growing (thanks god) it just doesn't seem like it beacause of the crisis but i know we (hole world) will recover from that and it will just get better from here.

Tablets, smart phones, social gaming, etc are not going to take out console gaming in their current state. However, the cheap games offered on these services is clearly eroding much of the potential audience for $40-60 games on handhelds and consoles. The only games that compete with $3 smart phone games are bid-budget AAA games. The financial risk on these AAA games means that game developers are always at risk of going bust if they don't get enough sales on 1 particular game. If consoles only get AAA titles, that means there will be much less variety in game selection. Innovation will likely be stifled by the huge development costs of the next gen.

Apple still has not made its grand appearance on to home television sets. It will. I have no doubt that once Apple gets it revamped Apple TV running (probably this year) that it will eventually have a game controller option to go with it. Touchscreen gaming is still a major limitation of Apple's current game platforms.

Other players such as Google may also try to add a game controller to their Google TV. Cloud based systems such as Onlive may also increase in popularity.

All in all, there will be far more competition for the living room space that Xbox/PS3/Wii once filled. I think Microsoft is the only current games company that is in position to maintain a similar market share in the next generation. Sony is in too much financial trouble and Nintendo will likely have an underpowered system with a huge loss of casual players.

The console world is changing quickly and with the emergence of cloud technology I think the landscape is going to look drastically different in the next 3-5 years.

Who the hell would stop buying a home console because of social games, mobile games and iPads?? It affects handheld consoles for sure, but I can't imagine this happening to home consoles...

Maybe I can't imagine people being that silly, shouldn't expect too much from the masses though...

I dont know. We have more players to the table now. Its not just the big three any more.