Wii U and nextgen console launches to suffer thanks to social gaming surge on smartphones

New consoles from Nintendo and Sony will serve as 'time-share donors' to mobile and social platforms, with launch sales significantly down on those amassed during the early days of Wii and PlayStation 3.

That's the take of Piper Jaffray analysts Michael J. Olson and Andrew D. Connor, who claim 'meetings with industry sources' have cemented their belief that the entire console sector is set to suffer in the next generation.

Down all round

In all, Olsen and Connor predict console software sales will decline 53 percent in the first 14 months of the next-console cycles from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

Hardware-wise, Wii U's launch sales will be down 35 percent from Wii's total, while sales of Sony's next console will be half of those the firm amassed during PS3's first 14 months, with competition from both smartphones and tablets cited as the main reason.

Sales of the next Xbox will also be down, Olsen and Conner claimed, but this will be due to being what they describe as "an incremental improvement" over the existing Xbox 360, rather than "a quantum leap".

Socially speaking

Said predictions come as a result of a wider shift to mobile social platforms according to Piper Jaffray, with those firms that already hold a hand in the field set to benefit.

"Unfortunately, we do not expect a console refresh to fully offset the secular declines in console gaming," the firm said.

"We believe console gaming will continue to be a time-share donor to social networks, mobile games and tablets. We, therefore, favour companies with increasing exposure to social/mobile gaming, including Zynga and EA."

[source: Gamasutra]