This^

Do people still think that, for the first gen ever, console market won't grow this time ?

Even if the 3 homeconsoles finish on a tie like this time (even if wii did better), chances are high that one of them will do more than ps2.

Edit : To answer the thread title, Sony needs to do what they do best, games. (And I want first party  J-RPGs back)

5-6 years seems to be about right given the strength of the hardware released. IWii U numbers seem fair. I expect PS4 to reach at least 80 Mill and Xbone around 55-60 Mill, however I believe for Sony and M$ profits will be greater than last gen due to hardware being closer to breaking even on manufacturing costs.

the ds passed the ps2? You would think that would be common knowledge if true especially on a sales site.

As for the speed of sales. the Wii was selling so fast that people were sure it would sell 200 million. But it really slowed down. phones and tablets have really eaten into the dedicated video game market. total hardware sales have been down every year since 2008. In fact Nintendo alone sold more hardware in 08 than all 3 combined last year

You realise that this means that this means that the X1 will average 5M per year throughout this gen, right? 8M for the PS4.

You're calculator must be different than mine. Mine says if it's 6 years long, it means 6m for WiiU/XB1 and 10m for PS4 per year. If it's 5, even more per year.

First, that's because you have taken into account the number of systems sold after the generation is over. Typically, for a PS system, it's 25%.

Nothing will top the PS2, that kind of perfect storm is impossible anymore.

Yep, couldn't find the original story since vg chartz did a format switch and probably nuked it, but seeing as the PS2 just went out of production, I can't see it changing much.

http://www.screwattack.com/news/nintendo-ds-surpasses-playstation-2-lifetime-sales

And yeah the Wii sold fast too, but 1) Not this fast. You could find Nintendo Wiis everywhere and the demand was nowhere near as high as the PS4's is now. 2) It wasn't as expensive and the PS4 is now which only means BETTER sale prospects for the PS4 once eventual price cuts are issued, and 3)The Wii's software quality sharply declined in the last 3 or so years of it's life cycle, so you can bet that that was a deep cut sales-wise for long time gamers that may have wanted it only for exclusives down the road. That was much more of a culprit to the Wii's decline than tablets and cell games ever could have been.

Another point is the Wii Marketed to strongly casuals which we clearly see by the Wii U's sales and lack of interest in Kinect 2.0 that they aren't a very reliable audience as far as carry over goes and they're the only ones where the cell phone/tablet argument comes in to play.

That's why it's imperative that the PS4 gets hardcores on board as they're the only ones who purchase games outside of Mario and Sonic and they likely won't be satisfied by the likes of a tablet offering over a full-fledged gameplay experience.

They also buy blockbusters and smaller titles and keep up a consoles momentum by even buying multiple systems once a new edition comes out(PS4 slim anyone?). Also, if they support it enough, the blockbusters only type gamer will follow along with kids and semi casuals like the PS2 had. If all that happens, the PS4 can at least challenge the PS2 in sales and maybe even software.

Plus I think the game market only "shrunk" because the consoles were so expensive last gen and not to mention that Gen 7 just lasted way too long. As we can see by the run on PS4s, the console market was in vast need of some new blood.

yeah that article got taken down since they had the ps2 undertraked, notice the totals there compared to the totals on the site now. 

true the wii didn't sell this fast but lining up weeks the ps4 is now down. the point I was making there is that the wii was ahead of the ps2 when lined up for a few YEARS, when people were making those predictions. We're only a few months in right now.

it is possible for the ps4 to do amazing things but it is unlikely with how the markets have diversified.

Last gen was huge 5 systems over 80 million. We won't be seeing that again. 3 systems are already way down and I hate to say it but it really is because of phones and tablets. The more casual part of the market are content enough with them. Look at the yearly charts on this site and go from 2008 until now. Notice those numbers drop and that's withough having ps2 numbers in there so even the sofware rise after that is a little deceptive.