Probably both.  You're asking a causality question, and that is sometimes very hard to answer (especially in medical or epidemiological research, yeah I know these are completely different fields).

yeah ive been following PO of COD on ps4 and xb1 for awhile and noticed a few weeks ago XB1 passing it then something weird stuff going on last week with XB1 getting a real low PO

i believe ghost will sell more on ps4 then xb1 we will see this in NPD and PS4 will outsell XB1 globally and in every region

Was the pre-orders higher every week before on the X1?

I highly doubt that many people have both XO and PS4 preordered and are getting the PS version of ghosts because of the resolution deal unless you're implying many people preordered a practically sold out console in this past week with ghosts.

Don't care for COD I'm glad that Dead Rising 3 and Forza 5 both surpassed the 100K pre-order mark.

The 360's preorders are more than the ps3 and ps4 combined. So much for 720p meaning much. Just saying.

Here's the thing: there are no available pre-orders left for either the PS4 or the XB1.

At this point, pre-orders for software are already determined based upon which system a given consumer has already ordered.

Hypothetical situation: I've already ordered my XB1, I want to play CoD on it as my first game. Breaking news says that oh no; the native render resolution of my CoD will be lower than that of the native render resolution of the competing PS4 which I have: A) Not pre-ordered. and B) Is not available for pre-order on account of being sold out.

So... do I not buy/play CoD for my soon to be shipped XB1, or do I not play CoD and wait until I can buy a PS4 so I can play CoD on it instead at 1080p native render resolution?

Point being, people who have pre-ordered either an XB1 or a PS4 are already committed to buying whichever one they pre-ordered. They can't simply change their mind, cancel their pre-order and order the other because they're both sold out.

Will this effect future orders once either or both systems become available again? Maybe. I'd be inclined to say that Xbox fans will still order an XB1 regardless of technical inferiorities, either because they already have too much invested in XBL, they have more friends on XBL, or they simply want to stick with the Xbox platform.

These people are arguably the only consumers who would influence pre-sales figures based upon which platform had the better version of CoD.

Even then, I would still be inclined to believe that buyers of both systems would still buy the inferior XB1 version if they really wanted to play CoD on XBL as opposed to PSN whether it's because that's where most of their friends are or they simply prefer XBL. 

If 1080p is soooo important, then why are 1.5 million COD fans and counting content with picking up the current gen versions and not the "superior" PS4 version???

I LOVE the hypocrisy on display here by the way... for years we heard from a very vocal segment of the gaming community (a large part of them Sony fans) about how COD was ruining the industry with its yearly installments offering up the same ol' same ol' with no major innovations, and now all of a sudden the slightly prettier version of the latest yearly installment of one of the most polarizing franchises of all time is being hailed as a model for the launch of the next Sony console... you just can't make this stuff up!

Once x1 owners play they will for get about 720 and 1080p