The console market also declined after you adjust for inflation. $51.8B on a 6.5% global inflation in 2023 would need to make $55.2B in that year to keep the same effective revenue. Instead it got $53.1B.
Phil lies, a lot, but he's just repeating what many other industry execs have been saying since their yearly 2023 results started coming out in March.
All these layoffs worldwide aren't happening because suddenly all gamedev managers became incompetent. They're happening because the global videogame market finally saw its ceiling and it's not going to improve anytime soon.
They were making games on the assumption that the market would continue to grow, but that assumption is gone. They were making too many games (and too expensive).
I think the takeaway is that even if the console market declined with inflation factored in, it's mainly declined because Xbox itself has rapidly declined over that same period.
Any Nintendo declines during that period could be easily explained by market saturation of their current product? PlayStation? Pandemic shortages limiting supply to match demand during that period. Xbox is the only console that has seen continued declines due to intensifying lack of demand, and that has been dragging down the growth average for the industry that it should be seeing.