>So the only place for the profits to go is to bonuses or shareholder profits

Not strictly true - if you're a mutual organisation (e.g. building society in the UK) then you could always reinvest the profits towards lower interest rates for your borrowers. Unfortunately most of these mutuals are converting into banks here in the UK.

For casual gamers, I would say here in the UK that it's the game prices that are too high, and not the console. It'd be nice to pick up games for under a tenner, but even 2nd hand games are still quite pricey. Maybe the US demographic is different.