I see people making statements like "The Playstation Brand is Shrinking" and references to how even though the PS4 is doing well compared to the XB1 and WiiU sales are way down this gen. That is true, hardware sales are down there are plenty of reasons for that, but it does not mean console gaming is dying. In fact I believe in the end the lower sales will not have too bad of an effect on the health of home consoles and gaming in general.

I am going to list a two huge reasons why console sales are down. They are just based on common sense and most of you already know this.

1. The Wii. This is too obvious. Last gen, Nintendo worked a miracle and had people in the nursing home bowling on the Wii. They had people who did not give a shit about gaming getting caught up in the hype and buy one. It sold some software too, Nintendo made a ton of money. WiiFit, WiiSports, Mario Kart, and the rest all benefitted fromt he userbase. No one else did really unless they were making Cooking Mama 6. (Activision with Guitar Hero was the big exception early in the GEN).    Now, Grandma who was in the nursing home is dead. Those people who did not care about gaming still dont and the Wii is in a closet somewhere. A huge chunk of those lost sales are the difference between the Wii and the Wii U, and Nintendo is left holding the bag. They tried to go after the same audience, but that audience had moved on to the next big thing.

2. This is the 1st GEN since GEN freaking 4 that people are not buying consoles as an alternative to another media device. Back in 1995 the Playstation doubling as a CD player was a big deal. PS2 being a DVD player (cheaper than a standalone DVD for a few years) sold a ton of them, and most recently PS3 had the same scenario with blu-ray.  There is no logical reason to buy and XB1 or a PS4 unless you are interested in games, most of the media services offered (Netflix, Hulu, etc) can be had with most modern TVs or a 40 dollar blu-ray player.

In my opinion neither of these major reasons why hardware is down hurts gaming in the long run, software sales are excellant. Sony saw this trend coming, they saw this GEN was going to be about games and are reaping the benefits, MS tried to continue with Kinect 2 and it set them back but they have recovered very nicely and have clearly adopted an "Its about the games stupid" approach. Attach rates are through the roof.

Another reason I feel good about where gaming is heading is the resurgence of genres that aren't FPS. Maybe its in my head but I feel the variety of games we are getting this GEN of the AAA quality is just wonderful. I think a prime example with GG's Zero Horizon, we have a studio doing nothing but FPS for close to a decade getting greenlit for a huge budget ARPG. You have MS and Sony using games likes Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Shenmue as the big draw to their system, is it just me or does that list send you back in time to the year 2000 or what.

Oh ya and PC gaming is thriving as well.

Compared to 7th gen yes but you are saying it won't eevn sell as well as 5th gen consoles which looks unlikely. PlayStation Vue, Hololens and Project Morpheus might actually expand it even more.