Have Sony and Microsoft lost their minds?

[theRepublic]

DaRev said:

 Seriously, what is the point of them brining out new consoles at this point, when considering that PS3 and Xbox 360 seem to be in the prime of their lives?

They are absolutely not in the prime of their lives.  Check this out from TheSource.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=152463

Here is what I said later in the thread.  The short answer is that gamers in 2012 are now buying less games per year than they were when the consoles launched.  They both peaked in 2008.  Interested is waining.  It is time to move on.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=5011079

theRepublic said:

theRepublic said:

Here is the separated analysis everyone was asking for.  I copy and pasted the exact numbers from the charts, so you will notice 2005 looks a little different because of the rounding TheSource did.

	LTD Hardware	Yearly Software	Game Purchase Rate
Year	X360	PS3	X360	PS3	X360	PS3
2005	1,178,267	0	2,849,162	0	2.42	---
2006	7,979,799	1,252,040	25,207,607	2,033,730	3.16	1.62
2007	15,859,351	9,174,095	61,447,450	37,173,227	3.87	4.05
2008	26,772,474	19,378,853	108,909,458	88,788,171	4.07	4.58
2009	36,932,992	32,376,827	107,118,181	96,837,921	2.90	2.99
2010	49,961,079	46,388,642	133,691,251	131,311,968	2.68	2.83
2011	63,769,444	60,507,735	154,713,292	148,409,212	2.43	2.45
2012	74,249,953	72,396,583	143,023,845	135,880,467	1.93	1.88

I guess I will throw in a little of my own analysis.

If you were to graph the game purchase rate against time, it would make a rough bell curve with both
consoles peaking in 2008.  It is pretty amazing how far both consoles dropped in 2009, with both falling
 more than one game in purchase rate.  It was more slow decline in 2010 and 2011, but 2012 brought
another small cliff.  Both fell another half game in 2012.  The Xbox360 has now dropped below its launch
point.  The PS3 has not yet gone that low, but it is close.  I would not be surprised by another 0.5 drop in
purchase rate for 2013.  That would put both consoles well below their rate at launch.  Clearly, that would 
be the time for new consoles.