The Number: The Video-Game Industry: The New Yorker Since 2005, consoles like Microsoft's Xbox 360, Nintendo's Wii, and Sony's PlayStation 3 have dominated the video-game industry. Nintendo released its new Wii U in late 2012, and Sony and Microsoft will unveil flashy successors to their hardware this year, starting tonight with Sony's PlayStation 4. But the industry is in rapid decline. As Nicholas Thompson notes, sales of consoles, accessories, and games have declined every month for more than a year. Meanwhile, the smartphone market is booming, and people are switching to games they can play in the supermarket checkout line, like Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Words with Friends. About two hundred and fifty-six million PlayStation 3, Wii, Wii U, and Xbox 360 consoles have been sold since 2005. According to Strategy Analytics, seven hundred million smartphones were sold in 2012 alone. So, in just one year, smartphones already outnumber eight years" worth of console sales by a factor of 2.73.