Depends on if Nintendo can pick up that slack it dropped ever since the Wii lost its appeal, when it started dropping like a rock. The Wii U performed poorly and the 3DS did good, but it's still Nintendo lowest selling HH. Of course, the HH market declined thanks to mobile, so we'll have to wait and see how the Switch performs outside of its launch window. If it can keep decent sales going, we have a shot of being up YOY.

No Xbox One and 3DS will be down PS4 will probably do around the same as last year. And Switch will sell more as Wii U, but not enough to make a significant change.

Does it matter? Havent you noticed? Pure gaming devices, consoles of the past - NES, SNES, N64, Game Cube - are a thing of the long gone past. 

Yes, you re right. People dont buy smartphones in the sense of a device mainly for gaming. But, a big round but, people using them as main mobile gaming device. That teenage boy sitting next to me in the metro the other day did when he was playing a soccer (european football) game on his Iphone. I think it was an iPhone. It had a tiny screen in comparison. My eyes did go all teary by looking at the tiny players on the field, obscured by the boys fingers. How can someone play like this, i thought to myself, while squinting my eyes, trying to figure out the how and why.

Those consoles i mentioned have another thing in common. Except them being pure gaming devices. They dont play music CDs and no DvDs. They re also Nintendo consoles. Not hard to miss, is it? Lets take look at their sales (aprox.)

NES 60 mio

SNES 50 mio

N64 32 mio

GC 22 mio

Wii 100 mio

WiiU 15 mio

My point is, you are extrapolating a conclusion by looking at incomplete data.

Nice table!!! And awesome work!
The Switch will be the saviour!!!

Im honestly not sure what you're getting at here or how im looking at incomplete data or why you are listing Nintendo consoles? Really your whole post just doesnt make any sense.

Bringing up mobile in a discussion about consoles would be like if you made a thread about movie theater attendance dropping and i used Netflix/Hulu subscription numbers to prove you wrong. It wouldnt make any sense.

It's quite possible. Here's hoping.

Nintendo wants to assimilate the last Vita and PS360 sales into their Switch numbers and build the market a bit. If you take Wii U's opening year + Vita/PS360 sales from last year + 20% who are interested in Nintendo in the first time in years, I think you have a pretty good idea of where the Switch will land on year one.

EDIT: I also hope I'm missing the joke of the post above me...

Zoombael a racist confirmed?

Microsoft and Nintendo both have poor console offerings this generation (Wii U, XB1). I love the 3DS but it had a poor launch, and has always been overpriced. $200 for a handheld, when a fully fledged console costs $240 net? The Vita on the other hand was a disaster.

So yeah, overall hardware sales have dropped. But the good news is that combined XB1 and PS4 sales are ahead of the PS3/360 sales year for year.

So it really depends on how you look at the data. You could lump all hardware sales together like Micheal Pachter does, and then proclaim that the market is shrinking. Or you could be smart enough to realize that Nintendo's failures are it's own and have nothing to do with the rest of the market.

My prediction is:
PS4 - 16-17m
X1 - 7-8m
Switch - 6-7m
3DS - 3-4m
All others - 1-2m

So 33m at lowest, 38m at highest. I think we'll see a slight decrease again this year unless Switch sells some really big numbers

With a decline this hard, particularly considering that inflation was not accounted for, both markets seem to be touched.