Will 2017 end the yearly decline of dedicated gaming hardware?

[zorg1000]

I was looking through the yearly hardware sales here on Vgchartz and saw that since 2008 every year has seen less hardware being sold than the last. I knew that this generation has been doing worse than the previous but I was surprised to see that the decline is still continuing. Can 2017 change this and we see the first YOY increase in hardware sales since 2008?

 

Year	Hardware Sales	% Change
2008	89.02 million
2009	81.88 million	-8%
2010	74.33 million	-9%
2011	69.99 million	-6%
2012	55.17 million	-20%
2013	48.42 million	-11%
2014	45.76 million	-4%
2015	41.95 million	-7%
2016	36.94 million	-12%

One thing I want to point out is that these numbers dont include PS2 sales, which sold about 30 million from 2008-2011 so the decline is actually more severe.

 

Some things that could potentially cause a YOY increase are the launches of Nintendo Switch & Xbox Scorpio along with PS4/XBO possibly having their peak years this year but can those counter the inevitable decline of 3DS, Vita, Wii U, PS3 & 360?

According to this site Wii U, PS3 & 360 sold close to 2.5 million last year and this year will likely see the complete death of all 3 of them. probably 500k between the 3 of them.

Vita sold about 2 million last year and based on Media Create it has seen a 50% YOY decline so far this year in Japan (its strongest region) so it could very well sell less than 1 million this year globally.

3DS sold about 7 million last year but with major software releases starting to disappear and Nintendo beginning to focus on Switch, a decent sized decline is likely to happen. Im going to go with about 4.5 million this year.

I could see PS4 and XBO being up or down this year but either way I see it only being a slight increase or decline, not enough to offset the decline og the other systems i went over so basically its up to Switch to push 2017 over 2016 sales and end the nearly decade long decline.

My predictions

PS3/360/Wii U-500k combined

Vita-about 1 million

3DS-4.5 million

XBO-8 million

PS4-17 million

NSW-12 million

Total-43 million

I believe 2017 will see the first YOY increase in hardware sales since 2008.