According to the most recent comparison article on this site, PS4/XB1 has sold twice as much as PS3/360 in the same time frame, roughly 25m vs 12.5m. Does this mean that these 8th gen devices will sell significantly better than their 7th gen counterparts or are they simply more frontloaded?

PS3/360 had somewhat slow starts, they released in 2005/2006 yet they had their best years in 2010/2011 which at the time was unheard of for consoles to peak so late in their lives. There are some reasons for such slow starts and late peaks.

For 360, it was the follow up to a somewhat disappointing seller in the original Xbox (under 25 million lifetime vs PS2 over 150 Million lifetime) so it had to build up a reputation and fanbase, also they had some serious hardware issues with the RROD which affected many consoles. In 2010, 360 received a revision that fixed some of its problems and the Kinect released which was a very popular add-on that lured in many casual gamers and caused huge sales in 2010/2011.

For PS3, it launched at an extremely high price tag of $599 and took years to come down to a more mass market price, $299 in 2009 and $249 in 2011. PS3 also recieved its motion based controller, Playstation Move, in 2010. While not as popular as the Kinect, it was still a fairly popular product. At these lower price points along with Playstation Move, we saw sales grow and gave PS3 it's best years in 2010/2011.

PS4/XB1 do not have a price problem with both being under $400 and neither have high failure rates but it remains to be seen if they will have mid-gen add-ons that create significant boosts, Virtual Reality headsets could very well be Kinect/Move type successes.

I personally think PS4/XB1 will peak much sooner and be more frontloaded than their predeccessors, either 2015 or 2016 will be their peaks. Both devices will likely hit the $299 price point in one of these two years, we will also start to see PS3/360 support start to slow down and big hitting exclusives like Uncharted 4/Halo 5 releasing holiday 2015 and games like Gears of War 4/God of War 4 likely in 2016.

idk, pretty sure the console life will be a lot shorter now that backwards compatibility is pretty easy for em'

XBO won't come close to 360 numbers, PS4 has a good chance of beating PS3 though. 100m lifetime is a possiblity I think.

I say no doubt. One of the reasons PS4 is selling as well as it is, is due to it launching $200-$100 less than its predecessor. All those people that were waiting to jump in at $400 on Sony(which was a $1-200 price cut in the first year) could do that from day one.

MS maybe not as  much cause the 360 launched @$400/$300. Its going to be a bit til either system hits $300

Both Xbox One and PS4 should have long lifespans and outsell their older gen versions, almost as long as gen 7. This is due to the huge amount of support that the consoles will get throughout their lifetime. Honestly, with the way sales are going and how high in demand PS4 and XOne are right out of the gate and through the whole year it gives developers very enticing reasons to develop games and apps on both systems, even if Xbox One's sales are lagging behind PS4. The PS4 especially will be able to sustain huge sales for at least the next 4 or 5 years passing the PS3 quite easily given the fact that it could drop to as low as $199 in 4 years time. Sales for either system at that price would explode and you have yourself another PS2, sales wise. I don't see gen 8 sales a sfront-loaded at all.

Gen 9 should also release sometime in 2020, or shortly before, but gen 8 will still be around for 3 years after that because of how relevant this gen will turn out to be. Gen 7 lost flame early into the gen 8 due to fatigue and definitely could has prospered more with actual price cuts but this is why I see gen 8 being much more lucrative for the consumer and corporations alike.

Ps4 and xboxone one problem is cross-gen and they still had a lot of first party guns not yet released  so i think xbone+ps4 will always still sell better then ps3+xbox360

I'm not really talking about lifetime sales, more so I want to know if u think they will peak earlier. PS3/360 were slow burners and for certain reasons had really late peaks. Will PS4/XB1 have similar sales curves or will they peak more similar to when most consoles peak, which is usually the 2nd or 3rd year.

The caveat in reference to PS4 vs PS3 is that the PS3 couldn't be front loaded because the price was so damn high. Therefore, its really hard to say. Will the more affordable entry level lead to more front loaded sales for the PS4? Well hell yes as it is the fastest selling console of all time. So PS4 is either front loaded to the max or its the PS2 reborn...(which, for the record wasn't front loaded but rather a freak of nature unmitigated success)

Coordinately is difficult to tell for the Xbox One vs the Xbox 360. The Xbox One is selling faster than the Xbox 360 in the US and UK... not so much in Japan, and its in new markets like China. The US sales will be more front loaded because the 360 took a while to really catch on. In Japan, its dead, and China is something they can work on with more strategic pricing and with the blessing of the Chinese government....

I'm not talking about lifetime sales, I want to talk about whether or not these new consoles are more frontloaded and will have more normal peaks. Most consoles peak in the 2nd or 3rd year, PS3/360 had extremely late peaks for one reason or another.

They are not,ps4 and xbox one they didn't peak yet but it's possible they peak earlier then ps3/xbox360