This is going to be a weird generation. Even if the West grows, it looks like all the consoles are going to fail in Japan, so already you're out 10m-15m units globally just from that market (PS4 might get to 7-8m, Wii U might get to 4m, X1 maybe 1m, against ~13m / ~11m / ~2m for Wii, PS3, X360). I'm not convinced the West will grow for home consoles.
PS4 and X1 could end up doing 70m or 80m (X360 + PS3 is nearly 70m right now, only up 10m from PS2 + Xbox) combined in the US and we'd still be way down on the Wii + PS3 + X360 (110m+) total simply by having Wii U die off before it got within spitting distance of 10m in the US. Wii was at 6.5m by late April 2007 after launching in Nov 06, PS4 is at 6.1m in late April 14 after launching in Nov 13, and it's died off much quicker than Wii did in Japan even though the launch was more recent in Japan than the Wii in late April - so all the trends seem to point to lower hw sales in aggregate for the consoles (certainly going to be true for the 3DS / Vita relative to DS / PSP, talking 235m to maybe 100m). X1 is well ahead of X360 / PS3 in its first six months, but it's selling worse than X360 was in Spring 06 at the moment, which doesn't bode well either.
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
When there are more laws, there are more criminals.
- Lao Tzu
