The console market is undergoing a contraction, and the competition isn't like it used to be. Hard numbers for sales data is harder to come by, as opposed to 15+ years ago when NPD was basically giving out complete hardware data and a fair amount of software data (at least Top 10-20). Also, a lot of regulars have left, either because life got in the way and they just moved on, or they lost interest in gaming (or at least discussing it), or they got perma-banned for being habitual troublemakers, or they got run off by said habitual troublemakers. This was always a small community, and it's gotten smaller over the years. That's why I made that post a few weeks back telling the remaining people to be better users (and to be fair the number of mod reports coming in has slowed down as of late).

I think a lot of us are just a bit fed up with the industry at this point and not without reason. It's a bit frustrating to see but personally it hasn't been too bad for me since I have less time for gaming than I used to anyways. Might be a hot take but I'm frankly okay with it if there's only 1 or 2 new games a year I want to play at this point.

There isnt enough arguing. We need a few good dramas every once in awhile

things will heat up again once shavenferret's ban is over.

Hardware prices going up for everyone, PlayStation killing physical discs, layoffs, and for the most part hardware sales this generation falling further behind the last generation. All the missteps with Xbox and even PlayStation with its failed live service push causing more popular single player games taking longer. 

Switch 2 has been off to an amazing start, but with the price increase not far away I expect sales to slow a bit. It will still sell well, but not quite as good as it could have.

7th generation had 3 consoles and 2 handhelds that all performed well. Wii selling over 100M, PS3 and X360 selling neck and neck, DS nearly topping the PS2, even PSP selling well. 

A lot of the arguing honestly was from tech elitists on this board who have gotten served a giant plate of crow from increasing hardware prices and it dawned on them that they themselves can't afford the hardware direction that they were championing, a "oh shit, if this is where hardware is going I'm fucked too" moment of self realization if you will, lol.