These were pre-orders mostly. Let me know how they do in Jan/Feb/March next year when all the devoted console fans are done
The first Q of release is all the people who will buy the next gen no matter what (hardcore people), but shortly after you have to WOO people with good games etc which takes a few years to get out the door. Most console sales come in years 4-7 when the game catalog is huge and prices have dropped quite a bit usually. Also the kinks are worked out, power is dropped by releasing die shrinks etc. I didn't buy xbox360 until jasper fixed the RROD (3rd or 4th gen board? can't quite remember). I was uninterested the second my friends were shipping theirs back (more than once! in their first year) a LOT. I am a hardcore PC gamer, but I'd say casual for consoles as they don't have much I desire. I haven't turned it on (or my ps2s) in 2+yrs. Casual people this time, will have 20nm/16nm/14nm on tablets, phones, SOC consoles, Shield rev2/rev3 etc over the next 3yrs to look at vs. consoles. At that point I believe consoles are completely dead if they even get that far. Game quality on mobile will be FAR better than today and even some of today's stuff is pretty impressive. I'm pretty sure someone will release an ARM SOC based 100w console in the near future also which can allow for xbox1/ps4 like clocks and power immediately without waiting for say 10nm to surpass consoles. Their only problem right now is trying to fit in a tablet/phone format. Slap them in a 100watt xbox1 sized box and how fast will you be even at only 20nm next xmas?
Google/Apple/Amazon all have the money to ask say NV or Qcom to make a special chip with 4x the gpu cores so they can run a 100w box at or near ps4/xbox1 power. NV already knows how to scale gpu cores from kepler mobile all the way to 780ti etc. It can't be much to ask for a Tegra5 with 768 cores or something (as opposed to the tablet 192core version that will come first), then put two in the box. That is pretty much an xbox1 then right? Considering T4 is made probably selling for $25, we're not talking more than $75-100 in chips. Any of the 3 companies mentioned (heck NV or samsung, qcom probably can do this also, just to get android gaming boosted) can do this and sell them at a break even as they all have stores and make money from ads or transactions of software sales. Simply cutting out a bluray drive and having 20nm on your side next year should be enough to allow powerful $300 or less priced boxes that possibly stream your PC's gpu for even more TV gaming (if NV is involved likely a given). Your library is already HUGE from android and PC in that case vs. consoles maybe having 50games each next xmas? A lot of casual (and even some hardcore) will go mobile instead of a year 4-7 console. If any of the big boys do a 100w ARM box as a console soon or with 20nm I'm thinking even year 1.5-4 will suck for consoles just due to the HUGE library already available and coming as 60% of devs are making mobile games vs. less than 12% for next gen consoles (and single digits for wiiu, vita, 3ds). Add another 40% from PC devs making games and you have a MUCH larger library being formed on Mobile+PC (which is why NV should be involved to stream PC gpus giving ARM consoles a shot in the...well, ARM....LOL). Consoles are dead, most people just can't see the writing on the wall quite yet.
The interesting console numbers will be Q1 not xmas as both are new and full of pre-order people in the first two months. I'm guessing the pre-orders basically sold PS4 out in 24hrs. They are selling for $630-1150 on amazon right now, so only hardcore people will be biting now as everyone buying that wasn't a pre-order is getting raped by pre-order resells. Newegg and Amazon themselves have zero stock. So it looks like everyone who bought had a pre-order and what you see now is all of those being re-sold to suckers who don't mind paying double for it to ensure an xmas gift I guess. There are people that do this with every major product launch (iphones, gs4 etc). I can't wait to see Q1 sales after all this BS and pre-order stuff is over, not to mention seeing how many are stopped after seeing ISSUES crop up like RROD. PS4's shutting down without warning already etc? How bad will this get? Are people who were affected by RROD last time going to sit this xmas out to find out how both do after some people get some mega usage hours on them over xmas? It didn't take long for RROD news to get out, and it appears PS4 has day one problems already. How ISOLATED are PS4 issues really? I can assure you Sony won't be telling the truth but web complaints should mount a pretty good sized picture in a few months easily. How many BRICKED xmas gifts will users get? Turn it on, update hits and oops...Back to your PC/Tablet kids, your PS4 is broke for now...LOL. Can't wait for RROD rev2...LOL.