the day that Nintendo reported the 3DS had sold 9 million in Japan is around the same day that VGChartz reported that the 3DS sold 8 million in America.

But yeah the Japanese sales are greater.

BTW, are you gonna see that stereoscopic 3D Movie; Thor the Dark World?

Well, I've been gaming for 20 years, and I remember when the PS2 & GameCube came out and I was hoping for a non-classic controller.

Its not so much the innovation part of innovation that I care about as the increase in interactiveness for more interactive gaming in newer systems.

Thats what I like about the 3DS: we get Virtual Surround Sound Speakerphones so we don't need Surround Sound Headphones for the 6 speaker output earphone jack, and we get Motion Sensors for such games as Star Fox & Zelda & Mario Kart & Resident Evil & so fort, that just makes my experience more interactive combine with the 3D Sound & 3D visuals. Also such other things as using the stylus to unscrew the screws in Resident Evil and then using my fingers on the same touch screen to Hack the Lock that I had unscrew the metal cover of.

But I was hoping that we would get Rumble in the 8th Gen Handhelds, and for the stylus to also have motion sensors for certain games.

I really thought this thread was going to go the angle of steaming being the future and what we have now will be what we need in the future.  Instead it was rewarmed, "We will see the 1980s crash happen again!" which is what I tend to harp on, so count me as bored here.  Sorry....

So, given the sales of games like CoD Modern Warfare 3, sitting at around 29 million across platforms now, there are about 14.5 billion gamers in your world? How does that work? The gaming industry is larger than the movie and the music industry put together. You're pulling numbers and theories out of someplace where they should never be stored. Most people aren't expecting another record breaking gen (I certainly am not) but there's a lot of middle ground between there are crash & burn, which is basically what you're implying. The biggest tablet/phone games (in sales) are all Freemium, which is to say free but with the possibility of microtransactions to unlock content, the best selling games that actually cost money and are out on modern equipment sits at around 10-12 million, hardly earth shattering when given the massive installed base (smartphones and tablets likely have a bigger installed base between them than all three current consoles combined) when full price games (60$) sell as much or more on home consoles. Mario Kart Wii has sold over 30 million units on a sub 100 million userbase, that's more than 30% attach rate, not a single thing that costs any money comes close on tablets or phones today, not even ballpark close.

Smartphones and tablets will envelop the handheld market, they are no threat to home console as of now, unless a console aims solely for the casual gamer. The primary reason why the 8th gen will likely see a shorter cycle and the individual consoles will sell less is hardware development speeding up to keep up with the market and overall tech development and the fact that we'll have more players on the floor (cue Steam Box and Apple TV).

I'm afraid you might end up looking silly in a couple of years when; A: the 8th generation of consoles is doing fine and, B: the mobile casual market will see a slew of bankrupcy calls when the market gets saturated, copyright infringement runs rampant, jailbreaking tools spread and make profits go away. Not to mention that the whole model is based on neverending growth, you'll new customers all the time, you can't simply keep selling the same thing to people when they change their phones/tablets. This market is not sustainable over many years due to a multitide of problems, the foremost will be piracy, this is already occurring with many apps today and the companies themselves stealing too much in royalties won't make matters better.

Companies like Apple will force developers away from the whole system, its too closed off, its way too costly in royalty cuts, the hardware is average, the ranking systems are unfair (top listed will keep selling while others get no light shone on them), the customers are extremely fickle and development costs will rise just like they have with consoles. This teamed with aforementioned widespread piracy will stop this model eventually. You think people will pay for even cheap things when they can get them for free? Tablets and phones will likely be forced into a Netflix/Spotify model for games fairly soon to make it somewhat viable, this will greatly lower profit margins, especially if the providers (i.e; Apple, Google etc) insist on bleeding folks for big royalty amounts. Peddling ridiculous amounts of software for tiny profits won't make anyone happy in the long run. This market seems fine now but is headed for stormy weather on the horizon.

The future is not clear cut and the 8th generation of consoles will not be the last one. Home consoles are evolving and will continue doing so and aren't going anywhere any time soon. Dedicated handhelds, however, will soon be a thing of the past.

This is my take on things anyway, I believe quite a few people would agree.

PS: Using the 3DS as an example of doing it right might be a bad idea, its in the one market that will likely disappear next.

The console industry is no where near done. Over 200 million consoles sold across PS3, xbox and wii and it's on its death bed? Yeah no gtfo.

Actually the 3DS sold more in its first 1 month sales then any other video Handheld & Home Console ever, and same goes for first 12 month sales & first 18 month sales.

The first 6 months sales of 3DS was 1st or 2nd best.

The Wii U has already sold 2.5 million in its first 60 to 75 days, but the PS Vita life time sales are 4.1 million.

Smartphones & PC & Tablets just don't have any effect on Handhelds & Home Consoles. For example; Gunman Clive has sold more on the eShop then on Android which sold more of the digital game then iOS....I should add that the 3DS has the HFR 3D version of this cell-shaded graphics shooter.

Well, at least you actually said what you would like to see as innovation.  I see a lot people just screaming:  INNOVATION and they don't say what they want from it.

Do I have to remind you of the Wii's record breaking start and overly optimistic fans and the ensuing extreme decline that shocked a lot of people (but far from all of us)?

PC's don't have any effect, granter, they have co-existed with consoles for decades for tablets and phones offer somewhat of an alternative for handhelds but not for home consoles. Gaming on the go with small screens and simple controls is perfect on these devices. The dedicated handheld is going away, just like the dedicated home console is gone, they do everything now. The difference lies in scale, hardware, sound and visuals and software.

3DS and Vita are dinosaurs in the modern age compared to new phones and tablets, I don't believe that these will co-exist like the PC and consoles, tablets/phones are a viable alternative and that is the key here.

3DS is selling well now but its starting to slow down, 2014 should see some big yoy drops and overall the handheld market is heading for 60-70% of the previous generations lifetime sale. In the same timespan, home console market has grown and the tablet/phone market has exploded. The handheld market is the only of the three that is shrinking right now.

So we have to wait til January 2014 to see which one of us is right, LOL.

Well you got the 3DS prediction down for 39 million life time sales by end of 2K13. Well I will predict somewhere from 43 to 50 million by end of 2K13.

Yeah, it could sell more, however, if it averages about the same as last week's number up until around the start of November, when the holidays starts to slowly kick in it will move another 6.84 million by then, placing it at around 35.7 million, that leaves about 3.3 million for the holidays, which is about 412.500 average out the year, throw in the weeks where it likely drops way below 190.000 average from last week in the preceding 36 weeks from now and you can probably add another 1-to-1.5 million more units it needs to sell during the holidays. With the yoy drops being large in january and the overall sinking average weekly sales towards the spring and summer lull along with yoy drops on the global average as the year goes on, including the holidays, the 3DS average could drop a whole lot.

The very best case scenario, 3DS needs about 3-3.3 million sales to reach 39 million (and a 412.500 weekly holiday average) and a worst case scenario it could need about 4.5-5 million more sales meaning it would need 562.500 average up to 625.000 average (or even more, depends how large the yoy drops are), in a slowing handheld market with two new consoles launching and phones and tablets going at it harder than ever. The Wii went from winning the holidays with a decent to going fairly well under in one year, things change quickly in today's gaming market.

I'd say that 39 million for the year is not unreasonable, far from guaranteed but certainly not unthinkable. My prediction hinges on my belief that the the handheld market is heading downwards pretty fast in the next couple of years.

43 to 50 million is a really, really broad margin, such a prediction isn't worth much unless you try to be more specific. 50 million is impossible, it would need a weekly average of about 480.000 through the entire year, starting today. 43 million would require a 320.000 average through the year starting now, also seems remarkably high as we know that it dipped into the 110k territory last year and is likely heading for yoy drops. 

50 million is just impossible, 43 million is unlikely at this point. If I am wrong, however, I will gladly eat my words.