The industry is what it is, there's still an audience, it just will never be what it was last generation probably ever again.

It will revert back in size to the PS2/GCN/XBox era.

one flaw when comparing gens, they don't last the same time, gen 7 started in 2005 we are 9 years further, the gen before started in 2000 and lastest only 5-7 years

And you think that is a bad thing????? For them???? Its shocking how many people don't seem to know how this industry works. Yet we all come here and play stat analysts. The least some could do is actually understand what and why the numbers change and how it affects them. Its really the people that aren't seeing the whole picture that thinks the industry is in bad shape.

Thank you, this tells the real message, being that the handheld market is collapsing with increased competition from mobile and tablets. Home consoles on the other hand have been steadily growing, and will likely continue to grow as the developing world continues to become more affluent with more disposable income. You prob won't see growth in the US, Western Europe and Japan, but in South America, Eastern Europe, China and East Asia, it'll continue to grow. 

For further trend points, Gen 3 sold 77 million home consoles and Gen 4 sold 100 million home consoles. 

Nope, it doesnt matter. Cause those platform holders are making money as long as that generation is in existance. Do you realize that if they had their way every gen would be a 10yr cycle? Do you think they like the idea of starting a new generation just when the have hit their largest install base?

PS2/XB era was cut short cause MS had to abandon the failure the XB was and strategically jump started a new generation to get a year in on sony. It worked. Nintendo abandoned the wii cause as a gaming platform (when considering the gaming model) it was failing. Its no benefit to them having a 100M consoles out there if no one is buying games on them. The games they sell after getting the console into your home is where the money is.

If any one of sony/ms/nintendo could get 100M ppl to buy their console in its first year in the market, they wouldn't care if it only sold 5M consoles in the entirety of its second year. Cause if that console satys on the market for 5 years, then they have 5 years of 100M ppl buying games. 

Depends when you define the start and stop of a generation. If its start to start, then gen 7 goes from when the 360 was released in 2005 until the Wii U was released in 2012, so 7 years. Gen 6 was started with the Dreamcast in 1998, so if we go until the 360 was released then that was also 7 years.

If we go by start to end, then gen 6 went from 1998 to 2012 when the PS2 was discontinued, a whopping 14 years long. Gen 7 is no where near that long yet, and isn't likely to. So I don't see any flaw in comparing total home console sales between generations.

Definitely agree with this.  Last gen, the PS2's core audience was basically split between the 360 and PS3.  There were some who got both, and some Wii owners bought one or the other for the multiplats and exclusives that didn't show up on the Wii.  We also had an abnormal amount of casuals brought in by motion controls.  Those casuals have mostly moved on.  And I don't think we're going to have as equal a split of the core audience between the PS4 and the One.

With the way things are going, it seems like either the Wii U or the One will pull off numbers similar to the GC, with the other slightly outperforming the real XB1.  Finally, the PS4 will probably end somewhere between the PS1 and PS2.

Exactly. I couldn't have said it better myself. I would have added gen 3 and 4 but it was too much work

There are tons of other ways to go into it and show how th econsole industry has steadily been growing, hell... the gaming uindustry in general cause even though dedicated handheld platforms are biting the dust, an increasing amount of industry revenue is coming from the smartphone/tablet sectors every year since 2007. Thats still money that gets factored into the "gaming industry" in general. Just means that now there are more players ompeting in th ehandheld space...aka apple and google.

Absolutely agree. Its not in anyway a bad thing if the industry goes back to PS2 gen numbers. 211M consoles sold is still super good business. I don't se it being that high though, unless VR gaming becomes a thing. BUt even that i think is too price inhibitive. The XB1 will not do as poorly as the OGXB did, definitely not, between NA and the rest of the world including europe they would sell at least 40-45M consoles. PS4 will do around 110-130M and the WiiU will do around 25M. Thats still a 200M generation. 

Mind you, if sony/ms or both can actually pull off what i think they are planning, then by as early as 2016 we will be seeing $200 PS4s/XBOs on store shelves. If they can do that then you can just add 25-45M to the above total. I think a lot of people forget that the most expensive console in the PS2 era cost $299. At launch.

"Fighting to stay alive"? "The future looks terrible"? C'mon guys...

Let's ignore handhelds, that had a huge boost last gen and are now arguably dying. Seventh gen numbers were heavily inflated by the Wii and then sixth gen numbers were also a little inflated by the PS2 (dvd player and whatnot). It's not "shrinking" per say, it's just going back to normal numbers. Any number between 150 and 200 million sounds like a safe bet to me.