Anyone thinking PS4's possible early lead means anything is sorely mistaken. Don't get me wrong--since the news about each console broke, I've gone from an owner of consoles from both parties to strictly PS4 next gen. But facts are facts. And the facts are that:
1) Microsoft has a history of committing insane amounts of money to advertising and cross-promotions (Doritos, Mt. Dew, etc). Like it or not, this shit works to convince the casuals that paying $100 extra for a weaker console with a camera that needs to be connected at all times is a good thing.
2) Microsoft's CoD/Battlefield 4/TitanFall deals, no matter how limited the exclusivity of the DLC or game, is a massive coup for capturing the coveted "Pew! Pew! Dudebro" market. These folks don't care about weaker consoles/DRM or NSA scares/Kinect being stupid. They care about shooting their friends in the face. And once they start to choose a console as their preference, it becomes the "cool" console, and the rest of the dudebros follow.
3) As much as the majority of core gamers couldn't give two shits about the Xbone's ability to plug in your cable box to allow you to watch TV on your TV, or how it lets you shrink down your main screen to unviewable sizes so you can Skype, or the ability to start waving your arms around like a shithead to control your TV instead of the old fashioned, boring method of tapping a button, these features are going to amaze the shit out of moms across the country. Sure, $500 is a lot to pay just for that feature, but when little Billy is begging for a new Halo machine and mom sees the wacky TV shit, that bitter price pill will be much easier to swallow.
As much as I hate to say it, I see the upcoming gen going very much like the current one: Xbox winning the UK and North America, PlayStation winning everywhere else. Overall numbers will be very close.
1) Microsoft has a history of committing insane amounts of money to advertising and cross-promotions (Doritos, Mt. Dew, etc). Like it or not, this shit works to convince the casuals that paying $100 extra for a weaker console with a camera that needs to be connected at all times is a good thing.
2) Microsoft's CoD/Battlefield 4/TitanFall deals, no matter how limited the exclusivity of the DLC or game, is a massive coup for capturing the coveted "Pew! Pew! Dudebro" market. These folks don't care about weaker consoles/DRM or NSA scares/Kinect being stupid. They care about shooting their friends in the face. And once they start to choose a console as their preference, it becomes the "cool" console, and the rest of the dudebros follow.
3) As much as the majority of core gamers couldn't give two shits about the Xbone's ability to plug in your cable box to allow you to watch TV on your TV, or how it lets you shrink down your main screen to unviewable sizes so you can Skype, or the ability to start waving your arms around like a shithead to control your TV instead of the old fashioned, boring method of tapping a button, these features are going to amaze the shit out of moms across the country. Sure, $500 is a lot to pay just for that feature, but when little Billy is begging for a new Halo machine and mom sees the wacky TV shit, that bitter price pill will be much easier to swallow.
As much as I hate to say it, I see the upcoming gen going very much like the current one: Xbox winning the UK and North America, PlayStation winning everywhere else. Overall numbers will be very close.
Though I'll secretly be hoping for an absolute, embarrassingly huge victory from Sony, just to teach Microsoft some much needed humility...like Sony had to learn a few years back.