IMO they knew this gen will be much much harder to win. MS managed to get get a better hardware but that doesn't mean anything. They got deep pockets but lack environment. Sony during the years created a symbol. Playstation means console gaming, it means Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and so much more. They know what they are doing. Cerny knows this business perfectly. He doesn't want to show everything now, they want Microsoft to make some moves and react at a proper time.
Come on people, I know the current CEO is more in a financial department but people on such positions aren't stupid. Have some faith or regret saying bad words and apologizing soon. This gen gonna be huge for the first time - speed of ssd, good cpu/gpu balance, hdmi 2.1 support do no more tearing, fidelity and smoothness. No more loading screens.
Never happened before. Not in the consoles market.
Saying that MS have better hardware isnt even the whole truth (I agree that it doesnt mean anything, just want to wonder what this better hardware would even mean)
what is better hardware?
Biggest number of Tflops on paper?
Least faulty units after 5 years?
Smallest console?
Most silent units on average?
Fastests ssd?
best audio processing?
Best overall combination of all harware features?
Best APIs for hardware - software connection?
They are similar and different, but is one of them clearly better? As in "average dev can easily make better games on system A, but on system B they are worse"
Just staring at 12Tflops and thinking it is better is like starting at Atari jaguars 64-bit marketing and thinking it is better than other systems.
In my eyes PS5 family is more balanced as whole, they dont have PC+series s to drag behind, so devs can concentrate to one version and thats it. On hardware level PS5 also looks to be "more engineered", while xbox sounds more like American style marketing talk of how domestic item must be better than bad imports and lot of buzz words to hide flaws
So if after few years xbox games look better than ps5 versions including exclusives, maybe they have better utilized hardware, but until then, nope.
And yeah hardware TF numbers clearly dont matter as much as people think. Here PS5 sold out in minute or two and series x+s is still available after week or two weeks.
It is what it is, Sony should fail epicly and MS do everything right and still it would be a close battle, and now Sony is doing things mostly right so competition is already over