gamerux

Ever since Sony's press event announcing the PS4, all eyes have been on Microsoft. The reveal of the next generation of Xbox, the Xbox One, is now over and done.

The reaction has been harsh. Not just in an outspoken commenter here or a satirical GIF there; as I perused blogs, forums, Reddit -- the sentiment was ubiquitous. Some of the gaming press have gone so far as to call it a disaster.

Except the product showed wasn't a disaster -- the presentation may have been

Probably the most absurd comment I've seen frequently is "well I'm definitely getting a PS4 now." At first I thought this was just trolling, but I've seen it so often I'm afraid people actually feel this way. If I may take a moment to address this in particular:

The PS4 and Xbox One are very similar in HARDWARE makeup (memory, processor, HDD)
Most AAA developers will continue to use a cross-platform engine, so exclusivity is no different than last generation
The biggest PS4 user innovation of sharing will also be doable on the Xbox One

What we have here, folks, are SIMILAR CONSOLES for gaming. In fact, it should end here for most gamers. We should now be deep-diving into specifics of architecture to see who can push more pixels here or there. Instead, the Xbox One has become an outcast for doing MORE than Sony's offering. The talk of how much memory belongs to OS and game is ludicrous. I'm pulling my experience card here -- you can't compare consoles like these to PCs. Memory management works on a much stricter, and faster architecture. Drop that argument, there are plenty others.

The issue is a matter of presentation.

Gamers want to either see new games or that the team has been focused on making the system the best for gamers. Sony played it super-safe. The PS4 has great new hardware with new social features related to games and that's it. Microsoft talked about what ELSE you could do besides gaming. Behind that is great gaming machine -- it just wasn't communicated well.

E3 will give Microsoft another opportunity to address the gamers specifically, which they already planned to do. Hang tight, this is far from over -- and it's a closer race that many are giving credit.