Michael Pachter always gets flak for saying stuff about video game trends. I think that he may be spot on with some of these things. No matter what, the big dogs of the next gen are going to be Nintendo, Microsoft, Rockstar, Epic, Sony, Activision, Ubisoft, Take2 and EA. Other smaller companies will either close or get bought out by the larger guys. People will still play handheld games, but the market will be smaller.
I do have to say that yearly releases for games is getting old. Plus its limiting the growth of the industry as a whole. By limiting the franchises to sure bets, you are creating gamers that just want to get 1-2 games. I remember back in the day, people used to buy multiple games. Now, its hard to find younger gamers buying more than just 1-2. My brothers have other games, but they mostly stick to playing one MMO and then one FPS.
Mobile gaming will get better and digital downloads will become more of the norm in the next gen.
I like the person's comment at the bottom, where the next gen systems should have 250-320GB internal drives (to save costs) and then allow people to add on external drives of their own with no limit. Therefore if the costs are cheaper, then people may rush to buy consoles (theoretically if the prices stay within the same range as they are now).
I really don't like the direction that Nintendo is going with the Wii U. I think that type of gaming is going to get old fast and it doesn't really speak to the gamers that drive software sales. Families don't buy many new games, so developers may not make many games for it. Right now, they have some support, but I'm a bit worried about 2013 and beyond, if hardware sales are slow and gamers don't buy the 3rd party games that are out there already.
Overall, this was a pretty decent analysis.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-06-pachters-predictions-wii-us-problem-is-nobodys-going-to-support-it
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