One thing that really annoys me is the people that use the 13 countries excuse.

USA+Canada+Mexico+UK+France+Germany make up roughly 80% of Xbox and 360 sales. Once u add in the other 7 countries thats probably 85% or so.

Japan has accounted for roughly 15% of PS1/PS2/PS3 sales so that means both PS4 and One have launched in markets that make up about 85% of there predecessors sales.

I think consoles at launch are less about being purchased by hardcore, more about those who want the latest tech, and that's actually a pretty large audience.  Your average consumer rushes out to buy the latest iPad once it's released.  Your average consumer is also the Call of Duty fan, which most of those players have very few games outside of the FPS genre. 

I don't think of the average Call of Duty fan, the one who has little else other than FPS games as a hardcore gamer.  I think of them somewhat above casual gamers.  They play more, but they're still the casual gamer type as they don't expand their genre of choice by much if at all.   The hardcore gamer, those that like many different varieties of game genres, might have some get consoles near launch, but many of them are going to be the ones who wait a year or two for good games or more interesting games to come out.  The hardcore gamer is sure to have a backlog they can't play through while waiting for good games to come out on next gen consoles.

But, what you said applies all the same.  Once the people who buy stuff day one are done with, then sales should start dropping.

I think when the PS4 does drop in sales, it's going to be no less than 100,000 a week during the slow months but won't be too long before it's selling 150,000+ again.  I mean Gamestop did say after launch, most of their stock is reserved until after March.  Depending on how high demand is, who can say how long it'll be at 100,000 a week in sales before the system starts getting that winter sales boost in September.

Very true.  It's weird that anyone would try to dwell on how much each company makes on HW, something no one really knows.  Of course, they barely touch on game revenue and completely forget to mention that 1.2M+ in extra sales means AT LEAST 1.2M+ in extra SW sales, where the real money is made.  And then there's the extra sales from people purchasing another controller + other accessories.  And for anyone to downplay a gap that has grown from ~100K just a few weeks prior, to a now 1.2M+ gap, they are just fooling themselves.

This "it's only available in 13 markets" is getting old.  MS made sure to launch in the countries that saw the most demand for the 360.  The other countries will make up (maybe) ~10%-15% of its total sales.  And even after launching in the countries that will sell the vast majority of Xbox Ones, supply has already outpaced demand.  Which makes MS claiming that the One is sold out in a majority of retailers a complete fabrication.  If anyone wants a Xbox One, they can get one very easilly.