Remove Wii from equation. Gamers did not buy Wii and it ruins ttthe graph.

They wrongly assume that each console sale in the previous generation is an individual person. I own both an Xbox 360 and a PS3. And I went through three 360s. To the article, that assumes 4 individual people. More likely, fewer people are buying both systems. Because they're seeing less of a reason to. Plus the fact that the global economy is still crap. Regardless of what politicians want you to think from the stock market.

Yes some are probably dropping out of consoles. Possibly moving back to PCs. Others are just getting out of gaming. Likely for two reasons. Other priorities (job and family). Or just don't have the money.

Ugh not one of these articles again.

This is a bunch of bologna. All last gen people were screaming how the Wii was attracting people that weren't even gamers. Now we have to include them in gamer counts? No. There's far too much to consider than to just look at some graphs.

More people will jump to this gen when red dead redemption 2 is released and the ps4 and xbox one price drops to 199, i'm optimistic!

Theres still lot of people with ps3 and x360. And lot of people still having Wii as a console for family and kids. No need to change for them. Xbone, ps4 and wiiu isnt so much different from last gen as was last gen from pre-last ( :-) ) gen.

This generation has been destoryed by a combination of things, business people no doubt stepping in and demanding a form of extra profit and millenials buying into paying extra if be a pass or extra items for a pre order etc.

You have different consoles in the same generation and all of them now providing online subscriptions no one really wants. Next generation will only get worse which is why I feel PC gaming will return as an alternative choice.

It's fairly easy to explain... most of those who played on DS or Wii now play on phone or their browser. And PC gaming is also back in business (it never left, but it's harder to ignore now.... back in 2011, the most concurrent steam users was about 3 millions, now it's 14). I don't think things changed much for "hardcore consoles".

i blame casual gamers for everything in society

I left the console market as soon as the PS Pro was released. Gave me incentive to build a gaming rig. So far I haven't regretted it for a second.

The only thing I see in those Stats is how MS and Nintendo have screwing up all these past years, if you compare the PS4 stats to its pass console you will see its being retaining its momemtum very similar if not better in some cases in those graphs.

This stats are the perfect example how Sony Playstation have been supporting in their shoulders this gaming industry, if it wasn't for them it would be lone gone, from one side I'm happy that the PS4 is doing great but from the other side we need real competition to maintain healthy this gaming industry if it not it will be all over and mobile will take over with million of average games behind a paywall.

I do really hope the Scorpio is great selling console but then again is MS we are talking here so I'm very skeptical about it, Nintendo refuses to innovate and they definitely want to pull a Wii with that tablet thing or wants to cash in quickly with the release of it and run with the money, so who knows whats going to happen with that Nintendo Tablet.

This gen makes it harder than ever for casuals, or even potential second console owners, to simply impulse buy a console. To enjoy them fully you have to pay an extra $60 per year. If I have a XB1 or PS4 and want to play a game on the other console I wouldn't just jump in like I would in previous gens. Now I just think my annual P2P fees would be $120 or maybe $180 if Switch is $60 per year too.

The same deterrent exists for a casual who's generally happy with mobile games but thinks he may want to try COD of BF1. The idea of paying an annual fee or a second annual fee is a huge disincentive for everyone except the most dedicated console gamers. It's not so much the amount of cost even, it's the fact that you get almost nothing for the money you pay. It feels scammy. It's more of a tariff than a service when online gaming is free everywhere else except consoles.

P2P online turned me to PC gaming this gen. I've been a multi-console owners for over 20 years owning Genesis and SNES, PS1 and N64, Dreamcast, PS2 and XBOX, PS3 and 360.

This gen, I got a PS4 on launch day but built a PC in 2015 after I got fed up with ridiculous Canadian game prices and having to pay to play online with friends. Once I stopped paying for PSN there was nothing keeping me on consoles so I switched to PC. Only regret is that I didn't switch earlier. It's vastly superior in every way imo. My PS4 is now a Netflix machine. I convinced my friends to get PS4s instead of XB1s in 2013, now I'm getting very close to convincing them to drop PS4 and build gaming PCs.

Literally the only thing keeping my friends on console are EA sports games, mainly NHL which is the Friday night online gaming session game and their fear that group chat won't work as well.

Gaming will just find more gamers. Every generation is different in size. 7 billion people in this world don't do any one thing the same except eat, sleep and shit. So stop trying to make gaming any different. There are enough console gamers to keep consoles alive.

Moving back to PCs !!!

All you need to do is look at 4 and 5 year olds to see what the future holds...kids perfer tablets over traditional consoles/handhelds. Laptop pc's are becoming a better option for gaming than they have been in the past aswell. Older generations are also moving to PC more too. Consoles will continue to go into decline, moving forward. Theres a lot more competition than there was in the past. Between smart phones, tablets, laptops, and gaming PCs, even smart tvs are making it harder to choose console than ever.

LoL they said this Before ps4 and xbox one came out??/ But yet ps4 is selling at this point faster then the PS2 lol

the main reason would be that games are getting more and more stale and unexciting. in 2016 there were only 2 (TWO, two) games that really thrilled me. the rest was more or less a big "mehh". even the game 99% of all ps4 gamers voted the next best thing since chocolate. i was bored to death by this exclusive. so, are you really blaming people who don't feel like supporting a dead industry? why not spitting at the industry with the command to spice up things again?

and nintendo has become so damn irrelevant, people are thinking they got something to do with the market shares. they are not. it's mobile and tablet gaming were the music is playing now. deal with it or support your underwhelming nintendo gadgets but stay in reality with your argumentations.

Reminds me of the graph that Al Gore showed for global warming, which wait for it, isn't happening like predicted. Anyone can predict anything on the internet, show a fancy chart and the whole world believes it.

This is what happens when someone doesn't use experience or common sense.
1. The Wii casual grandma fluke is done.
2. Consoles aren't dying 2 weeks after purchase negating much less repeated purchases by same person (I.e. Xbox 360)
3. Console gaming is thriving and more mainstream than ever.

The console gamers haven't gone anywhere. The casuals are happy with candy crush and angry birds.

People get older, people get jobs, people get money, people get PCs.

That's usually the way.

LOL

Not surprising. This has been without a doubt the dullest generation I've ever experienced since the Vic 20 days back in yesteryear.
Cobble that with console fatigue and sequelitis and what you have here is a major disaster. If this generation of gaming has taught us anything, is that the last couple of gens where the best we'll probably ever have.

console market is slowly changing and dying. You will see more and more companies moving to pc as that is the universal platform. Pc/ tablet. Parents dont want to buy a nintendo tablet when they can buy a windows/android/apple tablet that does games plus everything else the adult wants to do. And again the pc market is the largest market and is world wide. You can have any level of a pc you want,cheap or expensive and your games never get out of date on a console and have to buy new ones on the next gen. One day though nintendo games will be on pc as its already tested the phone out.sony to as its also doing ps now on pc too. So its not like the industry is losing gamers

What a load of bollocks!

ps4 enough said. almost 60 million in 3 years.

This is a funny article! :-)

You know what fact I would like? where are they pulling their data from? They claim the Xbox One only sold 5 million for the year of 2016? Yet we know MS was the best seling console 2nd half of 2016 and Sony already stated their holiday sales topped 6.2 million. So........something doesn't smell kosher.

My PS4-Pro, OG PS4, PSVR, OG Xbox ONE, OG PS Vita and PSTV say other wise......

They stopped playing since there aren't any Good NFL games on the Market. We Need NFL 2K back!

http://www.nfl2kpetition.or...

The console market has ALWAYS been the faction of the size (PCs), even back in the 80s/90/s and now in the future. Lot´s of ppl. use PC to work and other stuff, besides gaming .. most of them do. A fact this article misses to share is, that while there are undeniably less console gamers ... for some reason WE still generate more revenue from software sales.

Steam´s revenue with over 14K games was only $3.6bn in 2016, $3.5bn in 2015 with 50% of the todays steam-games. Console one "generates" twice as much (if not more) easily among the console makers diff. platforms (PS3/4+Vita, 360+XB1, Nintendo) ... and like always :

Software sells Hardware, not the other way around.

You can brag about having 2bn. pcs world wide .. but when it comes to making money, the pc version everytime seems be getting outsold by the console counterpart (witcher 3, GTA5, Minecraft .. etc). What do you think the publisher gives a "hoot" about it? Exactly about selling as many copies they can ... and for some reason on the PC while lets say it´s 5 times the size of the console (in terms of gamers playing), the consolero simply buys more.

If we removed the whole FREEMIUM/F2P factor on the pc, which makes up for everything theses days (on the PC), the pc would look worse than it did early 2000-2004 (imho). Biggest F2P revenue is generated in Asia (PC) ... dem internet coffee shops.

All they gotta do at Sony and Co. is friggin start lowering their prices/fees from $60 titles to $50 and eventually to the magical $39.95. That alone should be incentive for many, that simply refuse to drop $60 on any game, to get it on day 1. Just apply the PC mentality of "key sellers" and once we get our GTA6, Witcher 4 for $40 instead of 60 .. more ppl. will flock back to the console. In theory ...

I think it's because these console manufactures have been getting greedy and making careless mistakes. Look at the backlash Microsoft received when they first launched Xbox one bundled with the kinect. They let alot of Xbox fans down by releasing an overpriced console bundled with features nobody wanted. Then there's Nintendo that keeps releasing underwhelming gimmicky consoles with only a handful of games. Most hardcore gamers have abandoned Nintendo and they lost the casuals also with the Wii U. Now they're about to launch the Switch which is basically more of the same mistakes as before proving they have learned nothing. Sony has been the only one that have offered what their fanbase have wanted. They haven't been exactly perfect but it's not like there's any competition anyway. Hopefully Microsoft can bounce back with Scorpio but only time will tell what becomes of it.

It's happening. 1983 all over again. And it's because of microsoft. Casuals are losing interest.

"In this generation, we have the Wii U on 13 million, the Xbox One on 25 million and the PlayStation 4 on 50 million. We’re currently at 88 million consoles sold across four years, but we are already starting to see a slide in year-on-year sales, two years earlier than the seventh generation."

first off, the ps4 has sold 53 million units, not 50, which would bring your 88 million total to 91 million.
we don't know how much the Xbox one has sold so i don't know where you're getting the 25 million from.

secondly, this is the 4 yr so to say across four yrs is wrong, sales are not tallied for this yr yet. ps4 could sell another 20 million this yr, seeing as this yr has just started.
the other console will likely sell well this yr as well.

just saying.

A lot of people owned multiple consoles last gen.

In fact the Wii wasn't even directly competing with Xbox/PS, and so there was real logic between owning a couple. But things have changed:

-Now many of the Casual Wii fans have moved to smartphones (Or 3DS)
-The XBOX is just a worse PS4 with no exclusives.

I don't think any gen in the (foreseeable) future will overcome the ridiculous numbers we saw last gen.

A lot of people seem to be missing the point of this article I think. It does not matter if a large part of that number owned a Wii, or moved to mobiles, or bought a second console. What matter did is they have not not invested in this generation. That's still 128 million x $300 odd dollars gone

Doom and gloom article, Consoles have been on the verge of death for 20 years now according to "experts"

There playing games on there ipads , phones , and every thing else .... Most likely out playing Pokémon and didn't get the memo

Easy ass games are the reason. I'm about to be one of those leaving the market if they keep putting out these stupid games that a 5 year old can play. It's because gamers nowadays suck and complain about difficulty. Dark souls isn't even all that hard yet people talk about how that is so difficult. Shit play ninja garden on the hardest level...

Am fine with console gaming ,don't see myself going anywhere else.

Tablets and mobile phone gaming is hurting the console industry. How a young person settles for playing on there phone instead baffles me. The controls are horrendous.

We can blame cheap/lazy parents for this. When there kid was yelling, "I want a Playstation/Xbox". The parents rolled there eyes, threw there smartphone/tablet in there kids lap to shut them up and it worked.

Now kids settle for just a phone or tablet. It's sad.

Not me. My kid is five. He has a Wii U, Xbox 360, PS4. He plays Overwatch, CoD Black Ops 3, Rachet and Clank, Just Cause 3, Batman: Arkam Knight on PS4. He has pretty much retired the Wii U and Xbox 360.

The 7th gen included the wii which appealed to non gamers and casuals alike. That crowd isn't likely to reinvest in another traditional console and probably only purchased a handful of titles to begin with. Plus now all the casual motion controlled games you could want are free on the app store

So there's a chance the numbers were to high to begin with

The biggest difference between current and last gen sales numbers is the Wii. Also for some odd reason the Switch is not even mentioned in the quesstimated future sales numbers.

How are multiple sales to the same gamer fiqured here. The early 360 models had high failure rates. The fat PS4 were loud, failed often, and had small hard drives. So Sony users in 2009 with working loud fat models with full hard drives could buy a new quite 120GB slim for 300 dollars or about 100 dollars more than buying a new controller and a larger internal hdd. How many 360 users routinely had a back up unit to play while the other unit was out for repairs.

128 million console gamers set to leave the market is a click bait title to an article that may have been written a year or more ago with an update that does not mention the Switch in future sales quesstimates.

My spins on this. It's the fact that for the casual gamer there's no real advantage switching to ps4 or Xbox1.
Aside from better graphics (mostly 1080P) for AAA games, you get nothing new to experience
50% of the games offered are digitals titles that can easily be played on a ps3 (indies, Telltales games, etc...)
other bulks are remastered games from the past consoles that you can play on PS3.
And last sequels like Gears4 and Uncharted4 that offer the same exact gameplay as their previous versions.

That is why companies are trying hard to create a reason to own the new console, Sony with the PSVR, MS with BC/ Windows 10 play and Nintendo with a home console that you can take on the go.

Just a footnote, You would be surprised how many still own an old 4/3 TV or old flat TV. Ask them why they don't own a cheap 1080P tv and the reason is simple: the Tv is working and I can watch my shows on it.
Meaning that just because we gaming fan needs the latest console does not mean that everybody does.

1. DS sales were replaced with mobile sales. (Android and iOS tablets, etc. See: Pokemon Go, Mario Run)
2. Wii was an anomaly -- so that decline is an anomaly returning to normality.
3. As demand is satisfied, console sales dip, but software sales spike. Few people go out and i.e. buy a PS4 every year. So each year there are less and less console customers. They're out buying games, instead.

How so?
if we compare it to the 6th gen, the PS2, which everyone had, has sold 156m units worldwide, that number split between ps3 and xbox 360 during the 7th generation.

It's very simplistic to look at X number versus X number and say 128 million left the console market.

1) Wii to Wii U drop was mainly casuals who bought the Wii and maybe 1 or 2 other games and that's it... so they were barely there to begin with. They wanted Wii Sports and have some motion control fun. Many other people left because the Wii U, like the Switch was too much for what it offered in comparison to Sony/MS.

2) Xbox 360 figures were inflated because many people had RRoD, disc scratching issues, and bought new consoles. Sometimes quite a few more. PS3 had a few issues as well YLOD. But overall PS4 and XB1 are having less issues overall. That decreases sales.

3) It was a mistake to add all the numbers together to equate unique people. The way this was done is like you only bought ONE console, when in reality there were many people who bought 360 and a PS3, or even ALL THREE. Console exclusives are down big time, and many people don't see the need to buy a PS4 AND Xbox One. They are much more likely to buy only one.

4) There has been a massive influx of competition to the console market. You have great alternatives like Steam, which allows you to blur 'generations' because every time you build/buy a new PC or upgrade a video card you have your library waiting for you. On the other end you have smartphones/tablets which soaked up the casual adult and kid market. The main point is, this isn't something that will replicate, because it's more of a one off change. Once you lose casuals and many kids, you can't lose them again unless you somehow had managed to gain them back. (and for the most part they were an aberration due to the motion control Wii to begin with). Easy come, easy go.

5) It also doesn't take into account the mid-gen upgrades with PS4 Pro and eventually Scorpio. It doesn't take into account that Switch isn't really a console but a combination of both (which in of itself decreases overall sales because before Nintendo could sell TWO devices to the same person, and now they will only be selling ONE, that's an automatic numerical decrease if you sold it to the same set of people).

6) You have time. Generations are blurred now, and the 7th generation was a very long one. It used to be normal for new consoles to launch 4-5 years after the previous one. The 7th had an artificially high 7-8 years and with longer time on the market, more were going to be sold.

7) Finally you have the maturation of the generation allowing consoles to hit a mainstream price. What I mean by this is, that most consoles are sold when the price point of them hits a good price. Many more 360's were sold when it hit $199-249 then when at full price, same goes for PS3 at $299 compared to 499-$599. Thus since we haven't hit that point, you can't simply say 3 years =40 million means 6 years =80 million. The suite of PS4/PS4 Pro/XB1S/Scorpio will continue to sell more and more consoles as their prices decrease. So when PS4 and XB1 hit $199, sales will increase even more. Even the graphs the author pointed out showed that sales didn't peak for PS3/360 until their 5th and 6th year. So that's really 2018 and 2019, of which we haven't counted yet. These projections are made from 2013-16 sales.

So no, the author is comparing apples to oranges really simplistically while not accounting for the above. Perhaps there's even other factors to consider such as the fact that millennials are earning 20 percent less then people at their age in the late 1980's, yet are saddled with much higher costs in everything from student loans/housing/food. Less disposable income = less gaming purchases.

Simple answer to the first question. Hell no.

Oh also the data set is wrong. PS4 sold 17.5 million units in 2016, not 11.X million.

I think it's difficult to compare sales graphs to the previous gen though. The original Wii was a huge fad that spurred sales to even non-traditional gamers. And the 360 had absolutely insane hardware issues. Literally, and I'm not kidding, I went through *4* Xbox 360s during it's lifespan. I know many others had similar issues, to the point that they switched to PS3 a couple years in out of anger towards Microsoft over the 360 problems. It's tough to blame anyone for switching brands after paying $300 for a console that failed a couple years later, usually soon after the warranty expired. So those things combined stretched out the curve on the PS3 and 360 sales, both from consumers buying a 2nd or 3rd 360 after failures (and hoping for better hw in newer models), along with 360 owners buying PS3s 2-3 years in order to switch from the 360. And I think the real 360 failure number was a lot higher than reported also. I personally knew a few people that had them fail, and most of them didn't bother sending them in to MSFT for repair. They either just got a PS3, another 360, or quit gaming.

Pc is the main event these days, consoles will die slowly over the years and change in to pc's.

People are growing up....

Serious answer: They've all gone over to PC and mobile gaming. They haven't stopped gaming, they're just doing it on a new box.

Observation: It's hilariously ironic that the submitter of this article chose a picture of the Xbox One S to submit with this story. As if the reputation of this site isn't bad enough already. Way to make your motivations completely transparent.

lol Take the grandmas aunties console that was the Wii off and it's not too bad. They should have compiled the PS3, PS4, 360 and X1 data and that's it.

Good, Console Peasants upgrading to PC Master Race

more pcmr propaganda

Ok, that title is clickbait and not remotely true. The article only indicates a decline in Console sales, but not a complete abandoning of consoles. At least the PS4 is continuing to do well. Maybe the decline is just due to Sony's competition failing to compete with them.

Microsoft and Nintendo didn't do what they were meant to do : sell. That is what happened.

Ps3 had free online, and that's why I got one last gen. But Ps4 does not, in addition Sony pulled a lot of crap last gen, like removing OtherOS, removing backwards compatibility, and the adware update that forced everyone to get the banner advertisement and put store icons in every category on the main menu. I'm not going to remain loyal to a company who thinks improving their console means removing features from it and spamming you with store icons.

Xbox 360 had paid online, and so does Xbone, but Microsoft does not have a good history of reliability for it's consoles. The 360 was notorious for red rings, and I know people who had 2 console red ring on them, and their answer was to go out and buy a third console! Hell no. I'm not buying the same console over and over again just because it's built to fail.

The Nintendo Wii was a hit, but the Wii U introduced a gimmicky tablet controller that no one wanted. Even Nintendo gave up on it early.

I have higher hopes for the Switch. But now Nintendo is going paid online too. I think that more than anything else is what's going to hurt sales for the Switch. A lot of their fanbase is young kids. They're assuming all the parents of the world don't mind paying a subscription fee for their kids games! It's not going to happen.

There has never been a better time to become a PC gamer.

I don't blame gamers for abandoning consoles. I love my PS4 but lets be real I was expecting FF15 to be released on PS3. Look at the new Zelda which is another example. Many gamers bought Wii-U solely for the new Zelda and how does Nintendo thank them by giving it to the next console. Its not a bad business decision move but it is a bad marketing move. I am tired of seeing a game look 10 times better in gameshows and deliver a lie like Ubisoft did with Watchdogs. Alot of my friends in 2012 were going crazy when watchdog was shown, to be sold a lie.

"all i know is"me and most of my black friends who grew up hardcore gaming have slowly lost interest in video games over the past few years, especially when the recent majority of games contain some sort of negative stereo type or feels like it lacks inclusiveness

This is why the scorpio will fail. they are releasing it when interest is starting to dip

Before I even click this as I'm sure it's click bait, is the issue of whether or not mobile phone gamers count being addressed here? That's a market that never should have been considered as it was only ever a niche market with a short term profit forecast.

This article is total bullshit
how the hell somebody considers the majority of WII users a gamer?
those 7th gen numbers are influenced by WII popularity among non gamers
if you compare PS4/XONE to PS3/360 sales you would get a more authentic picture

If the consoles are dying, then they are not dying enough. I do find it funny that a certain number of console gamers think that PC gaming is dead or was dead. Those people are clueless. Gaming on PC has never been dead. But I do think some AAA titles are hyped so much that they turn out only to be pretty good. I personally do get a laugh from the console wars, but many of the recent consoles have been lacking with exclusives. If you are a Sony fan, then you are probably interested in JRPGs or games like Uncharted or The Last of Us. If you are a MS fan, then you are probably a fan of Halo or Forza. If you are a Nintendo fan, then you are probably a fan of Mario Kart or Smash. These consoles have something to offer for any type of gamer. I am still a big console gamer, but I love PC gaming a bit better. In my opinion, it is better to have options.

More and more console peasants are joining the pc master race it seems.

First off he is mixing handhelds with system consoles. And when it comes to simply the Xbox One and PS4 they are outselling their previous iterations by far. And you don't need to look at what year the console started declining but at what quantity of ownership. Which his data does not properly address.

Yeah, fuck the consoles :)
I have a PS4, 3DS and Vita, but sure as hell would be much happier if I had to play all of the stuff on one device, like a PC or somethin'. All this exclusive crap would finaly end and we'll have just one platform for all :) Stupid console wars would die out too, which is a absolute paradise and all of them developers would have to compete on one platform, making them constantly make good stuff or die :)
Aaahhh, so lovely :)

This is probably more desperate console bashing from a "PC only" gamer...sad.

We all know mobiles and tablets have taken the casuals away from the console market - no biggy.

Obvious clickbait is obvious

I'll tell you why. Last generation these games showed up along with our first ever online audience.
Killzone 2 and 3
COD became a thing
Battlefield became a thing
Mass Effect franchise
Bioshock
Uncharted
TLOU
Gears of War first came into the scene
Elder Scrolls

Everything was new. For whatever reason all these new IP camera out that were outstanding games. This generation most developers are capatilizing on sequals to those games. They are not as new and exciting. It's not as large a generation leap in hardware. The CPU inside these computers are actually weaker than the cell processor inside the PS3. This is your answer. Nintendo completely flubbed their console decisions. They made no effort to upgrade their console. Xbox tried to force things on people they didn't want. Which only leaves Sony. Sony delivered a average but good console. Itself is also underpowered. These are the reasons. People ultimately chose Sony. Now they have to pay for online gaming. There is no longer a free option for gamers on a budget who want to game online. Gaming did this to itself. It can fix itself anytime it wanted to. It got greedy though. Offering huge online discounts to play online would be a huge start. Microsoft should lead this charge since it is behind Sony by so much. You don't see them cutting their online services price in half though. Force competition through price cuts. Nintendo? There is nothing they can do because they stopped trying to compete as a traditional console.

This is trash click bait.