Which was more of "no joke" - PS2 before the PS3 gen, or 360 before the Xbox One gen?
Although the situation is no longer quite as catastrophic, the Xbox One is coming off a system that is actually substantially less successful than the PS2 was popping toward the PS3. And did that stop the PS3 from tanking in those early years? No, because it had an obscene price and it flagged in several key areas - Microsoft had a year head start, Microsoft had the best version of multiplatforms, and Microsoft was massively ahead in their online integration and UI. And, for many (if not most) people, they also had the best controller that gen.
This go around, Microsoft has none of those advantages. It is significantly less powerful than PS4 and the XBO will have the worst versions of multiplatforms and Sony has largely erased all the important advantages XBL had over PSN for PS4 (this time around Microsoft hopes to introduce several new advantages with Snap and dedicated severs for most big games, but it won't offset the rest of the backslides). It has the most value for any subscription service with PS+, it is $100 cheaper, it is actually launching a week ahead of XBO in America, and only one week behind in Europe (where it is still winning the pre-order game massively). Its indie program is just massively further ahead than Microsoft's, it has so far not "delayed or modified" any promises regarding what is going to be available at launch quite unlike Microsoft, they do not have a trust deficit right now, they have a competitive and now universally praised new controller (Xbox 360 controller was a core advantage MS had over PS3, now at worst they're even).
Brand loyalty don't mean shit. Consumers are going to see a system that has any of the big games Microsoft has, usually in better quality, but with the all important death knell - that $100 difference. For the price of a system and a few months PSN, they don't even need to buy any games - you just get shit for free - but they can buy the PS4 and Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty and a PSN subscription for around the same price as a XBO. These are not the type of gamers that give half a shit about the camera either, so try selling that on the reason they need to spend $100 more.
While I think the 180s ultimately salvaged the Microsoft Xbox One and it will not be a disaster like Wii U's numbers, it will lose marketshare this gen versus what they had last gen. There's no way they can match it without the advantages 360 had over PS3, especially now that it is losing the pricing war hard.