PF's sales will peak and drop. In fact I have no idea how you can say what they are doing, we have virtually no information, unless Paizo is releasing sales figures or you have some insider info to share.
They're pretty open. We know that the first print run for the Pathfinder core rulebook was the largest print run Paizo had ever done and they
sold out before GenCon and the actual release. They did a second printing in November 2009, the 3rd and 4th in 210 (April and September) and a 5th printing - which was the largest print run to date - on November 2011. The book continues to sell well, both on Amazon and on the Paizo store, regularly being featured in the store's Top 10 list (right now it's #3).
Sure, but we have no idea what those print runs sizes are relative to what WotC has sold of 4e, or what they printed. You simply cannot say. Nor can you say if current 4e PHB1 sales are 10%, 50%, or 80% of what the PF book's sales are at this point, or if in a year the PF book will be selling even as well as the PHB1 is now (since it was released a year earlier). The truth is all you can say is that Paizo is still selling PF books, not that they have sold anything near what 4e has sold. Its hard to compare exactly either, since PF has one book and 4e has 2. (2 and 3 counting monster books). A 4e PHB1 AND a DMG1 would be the more fair comparison to the PF book. This may in fact point out a price point advantage that PF has, but I don't know.
Two years after the release of 4e, WotC was trying to bolster sales with Essentials. Two years after the release of Pathfinder, Paizo had to print more Core Rulebooks because they were selling out.
WotC never said that Essentials was to 'boost sales', they said (and in the latest interview Mike continues to say) that it was released as a way to provide a wider range of appeal, an easy entry point, and an easily stocked option for retailers. Nothing I've ever seen indicates that this related to poor sales. I mean in a sense ANY product would hopefully boost sales, but so it goes.
Googling the phrase and no luck so far. I have no doubt the 4e PHB sold very well, with many 3e players and players of other editions buying the book to see what the fuss is. But I do doubt that it was higher than 1e or 3e which were phenomenons.
Well, again, you're free to be skeptical, I don't have a problem with that. I have read it and I see no reason to reject it myself, so you can see where I'm coming from anyway. I understand that for people who weren't wildly enthusiastic about 4e and thought it was all a big mistake that it is heartening to have this narrative in which it was all just ill-advised and doomed and sank like a brick. OBJECTIVELY though it isn't quite so easy to support that narrative. IMHO, based on nothing but commentary from knowledgeable people I buy the 'product was oversold to corporate' narrative. Had they done a perfect job with every aspect of 4e they might still have been scrambling right now, but they clearly dropped numerous balls. I think some of them DO relate to the game itself. On that score I think they miscalculated their own game design chops. They tried to make a VERY revised and fairly novel RPG and make it almost flawless at the first cut. It just wasn't possible. 4e redux IMHO would be a VERY VERY good game, but I think they've managed to create such a negative aura around both WotC and 4e that they feel now like there's no hope that would work. I don't know, maybe they're right, but I'd at least give the fan base more credit and take a shot at it. DDN, meh, that's not the ticket.