I'm not sure sure about a roaring trade. Games consoles are niche platforms. Look at the numbers: http://www.vgchartz.com/
The global life to date figures are 12.4 million Wii Us sold since November, 2012. 19.2 million Xbox Ones and 35.3 million PS4 sold since November, 2013.
Add in Android phones and tablets and the games consoles are dwarfed in comparison, even the 3DS which has sold the most of the current games console generation.
People do not buy PCs, iOS devices and Android phones just to play games. In fact, many people do not play games on these devices at all. E.g. Steam is probably going to be found on any PC that is used for games yet there are just 125M accounts since September 2003[1]. And even if somebody plays a game on a cellphone - they usually do not pay for it [2].
From the Wikipedia page that's 125 million currently active users. They define an active account as one which has been used in the last 90 days. 125 million active users is about double the combined lifetime sales of the Wii U, XBox One and the PS4, which demonstrates my point.
I don't think you quite understand what is written on wiki page. There is no "currently" active users, there are just 125M active users according to Valve's definition of owning a product OR being logged in the last 90 days [1]. So the actual number of gaming PCs is less (I, for example, have two active accounts since I play PC games so rarely that I've lost credentials for the account I've created for Half-Life 2 and had to create a new one when somebody has given me a free game, not to mention incentives to have multiple accounts to collect badges and stuff) and is quite comparable to the numbers of a single platform in the previous gen consoles, which is so far is surpassed by the current when you compare sales relative to the launch.
Do you have any better source than a mobile analytics firm speculation? I for one have no clue where to get console game sales and where that firm got them is a mystery.
I don't see comparable numbers here either, but if you want to believe this - good for you. I don't see anybody contemplating buying, say, Call of Duty game or saving money to buy magic mushrooms in some mobile game so, frankly, I don't even understand what are you comparing. My main objection was comparing total numbers of devices capable to play some kind of games vs dedicated gaming hardware, which, I hope we have sorted out.
Not really. I don't know what you're objecting to. The trend worldwide is away from console platforms. Look at the shift happening in the Canadian video game industry:
Console game revenues down by 32% since 2013, mobile game revenues up by 20%. Mobile games on trend to overtake console games and investment is being directed to mobile studios and titles. Don't take it personally, it's just how it is.
The trend in the current generation is strongest so far (at least for Sony) http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/14/playstation-4-continu... and even for MS it's pretty good from what I remember. I am guessing all the analysts making these predictions are looking at Nintendo, which had been in decline since 1990s and only caught one lucky break with Wii. It's being back to its normal state will look like a declining trend only for somebody who learned about game consoles when Wii came out.
Doing trends for mobile games over short periods of time is entertaining but I am old enough to remember the same trend building that led to Zynga's IPO, social games were to kill console games before mobile games in the good old times of 2010-2011.
That compares games consoles to themselves and not to the broader video game industry. 35.3 million PS4s isn't even one tenth of just the iOS ecosystem, which is why mobile is the biggest video game segment and growing.
The global life to date figures are 12.4 million Wii Us sold since November, 2012. 19.2 million Xbox Ones and 35.3 million PS4 sold since November, 2013.
Contrast that with PC shipments, where 70 million in one quarter is considered a bad result: http://betanews.com/2015/10/09/pc-shipments-decline-in-windo...
Or contrast it with the iPad's quarterly sales: http://www.statista.com/statistics/269915/global-apple-ipad-...
In FY2014 Apple sold 250 million iOS devices: http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/apple-to-sell-its-billionth-ios...
Add in Android phones and tablets and the games consoles are dwarfed in comparison, even the 3DS which has sold the most of the current games console generation.