Touch controls won't be the only play method!

What if someone company had the bright idea that gamer enthusiasts still exist. They might sell a home dock to stream your smart devices to your TV and an option to play its video game with a physical controller. And what if they also release an attractive add-on to your smart phone to attract gamer enthusiasts who also enjoy traditional hand-held gaming.

This is why Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft just need to make sure their first party games keep their high quality during the console, handheld, and smart device gaming era. Gamer enthusiasts will pay money for add on controllers for their smart device if they have no where else to go and PC buidling is still a niche market.

I would even predict Android smart devices would be home to all the big three console maker games since they are cheaper and have a more open source coding/whatever than iOS. However, the big three will now have a subscription service on smart devices because they can't sell a smart device themselves. Maybe some will later on though when the technology gets cheaper. If Microsoft still produces their own smart devices, those will be the best place for a Xbox subscription.

I don't think gamer enthusiasts and the products they enjoy will vanish if Smart devices become the major home for video games. Enthusiasts will just buy the new form of games and the hardware that provides them. Remember, the past Nintendo president stated that a Nintendo console is simply a box that plays Mario. Today we know its also a box that provides Nintendo their control over their games. But with no where else to go to besides the niche PC market, Nintendo will probably join the other big 2 in making subscription services on Smart devices. Because Nintendo (and even Microsoft) is primarily a software company.

PC operating systems are more and more being modeled after their mobile couterparts. Within a decade, I don't doubt all operating systems will be unified (Windows PC will use the same OS as Windows phone, OS X successor will be identical to iOS successor, etc.). This means that no matter what device they are developing games for, all video game developers are using mobile operating systems and their games will be playable on mobile.

There may be some companies who resist this movement, continuing to ignore the "mobile market" (a meaningless phrase referring to an imaginary demographic at this hypothetical future point in time)  and developing games without mobile play in mind at all. But most major publishers will be developing games with mobile play in the forefront, because all devices will functionally be mobile devices.

This future is not unavoidable. But it is realistic, unlike "Microsoft buys every video game company" or "all major game publishers decide to stop making games simultaneously for no reason."

Ask yourself, in the absence of a dedicated-gaming-hardware oriented market, where all video games are playable on mobile devices, what kind of games will EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and Capcom publish? Look at their mobile offerings now. Are these mistakes from which they will learn, or are they a sign of things to come?

What if Final Fantasy XVII is All The Bravest? What if Capcom's vision for the future of Mega Man is XOver? What if EA does to Battlefield, Mass Effect, and the EA Sports line what they have already done to The Sims and Sim City? Hang on, too late.

I don't trust these publishers with a mobile future. In this future, dedicated console-like video games are truly niche.

This future is neither inevitable nor imminent, but it is a possibility, and things are already being nudged in this direction.

"[Microsoft] doesn't care what you do, as long as you do it on their operating system." Reggie Fils-Aime said this in 2004, and it carries more truth now than ever before.

I guess this isn't really a "crash" scenario, but it seems to fit the OP's suggestion of a console-esque-gaming apocalypse.

We already know third party publishers practices to get money. Are you saying, in this hypothetical future, third parties will become satisfied with their current offerings for smart devices and completely ignore the chance to make games core gamers will want to play. Yes there are the desperate ones will settle for the subpar Dead Space app on iOS, but they're not coming back for Dead Space 2 on iOS and Android. Especially if another company makes a better game that requires an add-on to your smart device or a home dock with a controller.

There will be a company who will take the opportunity to release a subscription service like Netflix but with games for core gamers. If EA and others don't want to support it, other gaming publishers will and earn the core gamers' money. You may think these profits are small because of the shrinking console game sales compared to mobile gaming is and that's correct. However, if smart devices become the dominant multimedia device in every market (PC, laptop, MP3s and more) more electronics will be produced to support it. Just like how the TV replaced the radio and we got video players and video game consoles! We're already seeing how popular smart device covers, chromecast, and bluetooth magnetic keyboards are. Why can't video game controller add-ons and a home dock to stream content from your smart device to the TV be popular? A home dock and a tiny magnetic keyboard/game controller for your smart phone can provide a physical controller or buttons to your smart device for core gaming again. And I bet the audience will even grow when games like Angry Birds and Call of Duty are on the same platform, making adoption to bigger games more seamless.

As long as there are gamers, there will be a market for games. Even if every major publisher/platform went to hell right now, there would be others rising up after them. Now especially it's easier than ever to make and distribute games, and for smaller projects to get funded through crowdsourcing. Even if the current bubble popped and there were several years where we just plain didn't have any big-budget games, we would have small ones, and those small ones would grow to fill the space again.

There are only two scenarios where gaming as we know it ceases to exist: The traditional gamer truly does die off and the idea of playing an electronic game goes the way of shadow puppetry, or the entire world goes so far down the shitter that literally no country has a free market. Neither of those are too likely.

I'm saying that "core gamers" will be playing games on smart devices because all hardware will be smart devices, and that from the perspective of major publishers, there will be no distinction between the mobile market and the core gamer audience because of this. On a case-by-case basis, publishers may integrate their mobile design choices into their "core" series iterations -- for example, instead of there being separate console and mobile versions of Madden, there will be only one Madden release, and it will more closely resemble the current mobile version than the current console version, because it will be made for mobile devices.

Imagine Assassin's Creed: Rogue watered down for mobile devices. Now imagine that the Assassin's Creed: Rogue you play on your TV is the same as the version you would play on an iPhone, because TVs and iPhones use the same OS. Just because you're playing it with a controller doesn't mean it's not watered down to be one consistent experience.

Streaming services and features like cross-buy, cross-platform play, and cross-saves are actually guiding the industry in this direction: unified, homogenized experiences across all platforms. This is not inherently a bad thing. But if the template for that unified experience is the worst iteration of it (watered-down mobile ports), we've got trouble.

Yeah, if mobile became the remaining area that people buy games on, that could work. But people are more and more rejecting mobile games that are above a certain price. If you can't sell a hardcore game on a mobile, because of this mind set. Those games are fucked. Image perception is the hardest thing for anything to deal with.