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Apparition [soylentnews.org] writes:

For years, people have predicted the pending "death" of video game consoles. Instead, video game consoles are doing better than ever [arstechnica.com].

In 2012, Wired cited mobile disruption and "the whole box-model mentality" in declaring the death of the console [wired.com]. Around the same time, CNN cited a "four-year tailspin" in sales for dedicated consoles (which, coincidentally, started right around the same time as the global financial crisis) to explain "why console gaming is dying [cnn.com]."

And IGN, in its own 2012 look at the fate of the console market, offered a bold prediction for the fate of the PS4 [ign.com] months before it was even officially announced: "A better-graphics box at $400? Not going to work."

Today, those and many other [complex.com] relatively recent predictions of doom for the console market look downright silly. The industry analysts at NPD announced last night that the US video game market grew 11 percent in 2017 to $3.3 billion. The reason? "Video game hardware [meaning consoles] was the primary driver of overall growth," as hardware was up 27 percent for the year, to $1.27 billion.

The launch of the Nintendo Switch was a huge part of this increase, of course. We already knew that the system has been selling at a rapid clip [arstechnica.com] that reportedly outpaced even Nintendo's expectations [arstechnica.com] worldwide. In the US, though, "on a time-aligned basis through the first ten months on the market, Nintendo Switch has sold more consoles than any other platform in history," NPD says.

But the Switch isn't the only console success story these days. As NPD notes, "combined sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One continue on a record-setting pace" in the US. Together, those "high-end" consoles are selling 18 percent better than the PS3 and Xbox 360 did at the same point in their lifecycles and four percent better than the PS2/Xbox generation.

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