Song and Microsoft have finally released their sales information for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, coming in at 6 million and 4 million, respectively. Unfortunately, for the console market, these numbers are much lower than what these companies were hoping for. Both consoles were released last November in hopes that they would experience great sales because of holiday shopping. Unfortunately, numbers were lower than expected and much lower than the 2007 holiday season when the Xbox 360 was released.

Total industry sales for hardware and software were down in January 2014 and with both of these flagship console devices being released at the same time and sales of consoles going down in 2013, it spells disaster for the industry. It doesn’t help the cost of developing and producing games is going up just as interest and sales are going down. There is a long list of games studios that have been shutting down since 2006.

This bad news may be a clue that market contraction is coming for gaming consoles. It may be too early to tell with the PS4 and Xbox, but things don’t look too bright. Even dimmer is that it isn’t only sales of new consoles that are going down. The older models like PS3/360/Wii also have rapidly declining sales indicating a wider market collapse.

So what happened to all of the gamers? Why aren’t they flocking to their consoles anymore? It may be because many are increasingly playing games on their mobile devices. It could also be that there is just too much to do with your free time. Now people are distracted by other recreational delights such as social networking, a plethora of apps, and various avenues of mobile messaging. The console market may not be able to keep up.