i dont see the 20, happening. who should buy em when europes young are so heaviely unemployed?
us unemployment dont look well too. the not core people just dont have the money to buy a new console.

Some other possible factors for high PS4 demand:

1.People are more accustomed and comfortable with spending money on tech after smartphone/tablet explosion, in fact the next gen consoles look a bargain in comparison to the latest iPad or Galaxy S4 for example.

2.Very long wait since start of last generation. 8 years is a long time to be with the same hardware. More people ready to upgrade.

3. PS4 looks better than X1. Aesthetics do mean alot for many people, even for a living room/bedroom box that might be hidden away. Where X1 looks generic, PS4 is more iconic and, possibly, desirable.

4.Price. $100/£80 is a substantial differentiator. Also cheaper than last generation's starting prices.

5.Latent PS brand love re-emerging from PS2 era. In my opinion, PS4 looks more welcoming and warm with its medium blue colour atm, while Xbox's radioactive green might even be enough to offput some people.

Ok, so some of the points are clearly small, subtle factors, but they all add up...

LoL not every one is in the position of the Greeks.  Let face it broke people need escape from reality even more.  

400 is not a lot for something that lasts easily half a decade, maybe when phone market goes belly up ill worry about the unemployed as far as gaming.

spain, france, protugal, italy. that a big big market.  uk has problems too, but they just dont care, tey are on the doomed path for years, so they can copy the us in gaming too.

Sure buying a house or car is not likely in thsoe markets for the poorer ones, but a console... its escapism form the harsh reality, its a investment into maintaing some quialty of life and sanity.  Iv been on the wrong side of the fence, i still always had a console just later in the gen not first year, when a new PS costs half of what pops drives.  i get poor.

i can see a demand at lower prices, but not 400+games+ps++controller+hdtv(hdready tvs arnt uncommon in europe, hd channels are expensiv)

15mi is the max top by the end of the year.

We are still in the shadows of previous generation and the interesting for the next consoles has already died down.

Sony needs not only games, which few are comming this year, by interesting apps and enterteiment features.

Has it? Says who?

I think 15-17 Millions are feasible.. 20M is a lot of consoles to produce.

Am not so sure, unless there is big blockbusters ala GT6 and GTA6(Which wont happen due to long development cycles) coming out it wont average what you expect during the May - September months. By which point the hype would quiet down and demand will be satisfied. Don't underestimate the current generation, it will have beast holiday season in 2014 due to offers, but beyond that I can see most adapters waiting till inevitable price drop in 2015.

GT5 should have been adapted for PS4. As it stands the multiplat games will still come out on the X360/PS3 and most of the first party games due this year won't be significant system movers. Can't pinpoint the numbers myself, but highly doubt it will hit 20 million by the end of 2014, maybe March/May next year.