Anybody that isn't wary of a mangled dog is stupid, because it can turn and bite. However leave it alone long enough and eventually it dies. I don't agree with people saying that the ball is in Microsoft's court by any stretch of the imagination. It still very much is in Sony's court and it's up to them to continue to prove they're superior. If they don't, if they get cocky like they did with the PS3 and Microsoft is doing with the Xbone, they probably will fuck themselves. However I think they did learn a lesson after the 599 US dollars giant enemy crab historical battle nonsense.

Kids will still push for the Xbone because it's what they grew up with, much like Nintendo and Sony to us older gentlemen and gentleladyfemaletypewomen. They only know brand loyalty and fanboyism. But make no mistake that 100 dollars will mean a massive amount to parents this Christmas and next, especially in a recession that's already over 4 years old. Slightly accelerated map packs might be a selling point to children, but they're not the ones with the money.

Of course there will be stupid people that buy something because it costs more and they go by the old adage of, "You get what you pay for," and that can't be stopped. But the hardcore, historically, have been the early adopters of technology. The people that come here, go to gaf, and then jerk off for an hour will be the ones that drive the market, not Lil' Johnny Fuckface with his fucked face down the street that doesn't even know what GDDR5 is. Lil' Johnny Fuckface doesn't have the capital to help make something succeed and drive the market, we do however.

I honestly do believe that at some point a year after launch the Xbone will be boned. I do predict, like the Miss Cleo that I am, a major XBL outage and outrage because of that outage. The system will probably be hacked by then, because that'll be the crown jewel of homebrew so everybody will be working on breaking it. Hubris is a hell of a thing and hell really hath no fury like a nerd scorned.

~Fin

Probably one of my better posts, which isn't saying much I guess. Because it looks all over the place and I seem like a raving lunatic.

No doubt they have some xbox die hards who will always buy the xbone - but how many people have they lost? And how many sony fans have been won over? What reasons beyond stupidity, ignorance, or an irrational love of an old third-rate fighting game have MS given people to buy their console when the PS4 is looking pretty damn good?

That's exactly it. There are a LOT of people who get the entirety of their gaming knowledge from what's on store shelves. More than there are of us. Microsoft isn't going to tumble from their money tower any time soon.

And while the XB1 looks pretty dire to us, it's not without merit. It'll probably be an excellent machine when it boils down to actually playing a video game. It's fun to root for Sony right now, and it sends a good message as to what consumers want, but I don't think it's fair to write off the One entirely. Unless something crazy happens, the Xbox brand isn't going anywhere. And as always, that's a good thing. The last thing anybody needs is a one console future, as much as fanboys may drool over the idea. (There's still Nintendo, of course, but... yeah)

I'm not saying MS isn't going to be hurting pretty hard come launch, but the "MS is dead" talk is super hyperbolic.

Consumers will always vote with there wallets

It's still wayyyyy too early to tell what's going to happen in the long run. Xbox had an audience before this announcement, who knows what they are thinking now that both consoles have been revealed. Buzz on the internet sometimes is way different than the buzz on the streets, trust me I work in retail and the customers I talk to are in a different mindset, and sometimes are pretty oblivious about what's going on in the games industry. Again, it's too early they might change some details near release or they might not.

No, you made sense, don't worry. c:

I disagree with some of what you say, though. I think what we'll see is in the first year or two we will see a clear lead on which console is superior like we did with the 360 and the PS3. Early game between those two was rough. PS3 had basically no games worth playing(some people are going to fight me on this, I know it), their online wasn't that great, it was SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE that barely anybody owned one... After a time, though, the consoles will even out and it will come down to personal preference.

I think the personal preference part will come faster this time.

I know there are stupid people in the world, but I refuse to believe there is any more than a very very small minority that would pay more for something simply because it's more money. If they want the "more powerful machine" the majority would at least have some semblance of knowledge about which one is in fact the more powerful machine.

@jimmyfenix: but weak consumers will be swayed by flashy marketing.

Corporations throw money at problems because it seems to work and make it difficult for people to resist spending money. Microsoft is voting against consumers (hyperbole) with an enormously huge wallet. Hopefully this generation more people will wise up and realize how complacency feeds corporate greed. I love the gesture Sony made at their conference. Human decency means so much more to me than money. Sony showed that not only do consumers have wallets to vote with, they have the internet.

Destiny is platform agnostic, I wouldn't factor it into the exclusive game. It's good on Sony for saying "Hey Bungie fans! You can leave Microsoft now" but it's not a pull so much as a neutral participant.

I bought both because the One's bad bits don't impact me personally. That may sound bad, but I feel it's more realistic. Why should you buying something for yourself consider the needs of hypothetical people who don't really exist? If those people do exist they can just not buy an Xbox One and avoid the terrible issues you bring up entirely.

I think that Microsoft will be behind. I do not think it will be behind Wii U. Their lineup is strong, and they're well positioned to catch up as we go further and further into our digital future and discs and the entire used game problem go away.

Excuse me, but did you say "penisy?"

@the_laughing_man

Yeah, probably. Shoot, I already know which one I actually WANT and I get all consoles every generation anyway.

I also believe that we will see a flip from what happened this/last gen(oh god which one do we use i am so confused) in that the PS4, being so designer centric, will be the primary console for development and the Xbox One will get the "ports." Though maybe not, since they run on almost literally the same hardware... are ports a thing of the past now? With everything the same, all that really needs to be changed are minor details and controller inputs, right?

This was a good read and I liked your use of the word "penisy," I'm hoping you had the Star Wars Family Guy scene in mind!

However I don't see the point in trying to predict the future. Let's stop trying to understand the various demographics that purchase consoles and games for different reasons, and just roll with it! Looking forward to seeing the console situation unfold as I game on my PC some moar.

@fongghoul: I got a bit penisy with my vernacular you might say.

I'm so sick of this narrative that somehow the Ps4 is "stuck in the past" for.. what? Not changing anything in regards to single player disc-based game sales? And this means that Sony can't compete in a "digital future"? How does that make any sense? It makes even less sense when you consider that Sony has been doing more than anyone else in the console space in encouraging digital sales. There's absolutely no line of logic that says Sony can't both have a robust digital side with a vibrant social space and also have consumer friendly disc-based policies.

It's absurd that we're at the point where arguments in defense of the Xbox One are practically psychological and rooted in willfully bad math. I don't think Microsoft is doomed or that the Xbone is "boned" or anything like that, but it's telling that the only defense of Microsoft at this point seem to be cynical, privileged, and/or ignorant.

Read an article in the Washington Post today that suggested that Microsoft seems to be better off as its focus on entertainment will likely allow it to appeal to many more people than the PS4. I'd have to agree, but even as a gamer I see the Xbox One as the better buy.

Mine's reserved, only counting down the days now.

As someone that was a Sony fan during the Psone and PS2 days, I did adopt the 360 and stuck by it through this entire generation. I did buy a PS3 late in the generation for the exclusives, but never fully adopted it. Now I feel that Sony has made a strong argument for me to rejoin their ranks. I could probably buy a Xbone, yet I feel like I shouldn't. I do not believe they have made a good argument for their console, at least to me. I loved most of what they did with the 360 and XboxLive, though I cannot deny how powerful the PS4 looks. Sony is marketing the PS4 for the "gamer." I do enjoy apps and what not, but games are priority and Sony seems to understand that. So here is an eight year veteran of Microsoft and the 360 signing off and rejoining the company of my childhood. I cannot wait to see what Sony has in store, but I'm already on board. Can't wait!

P.S. Sony had me when they showed Kingdom Hearts 3, even if it is multiplatform. That was it for me.

Yeah but we know what we're getting by this point. The XBox is more shooter centric, the PS is more a mish mash of everything else. Yes it's generalizing, but so be it. Both Microsoft and Sony are making a known commodity, people know what that is, and people know what they want. Ultimately though the one that jumps to the lead gets developer and publisher support. Happened with the PS2 and happened with the 360. And that'll drive development. It might even out or it might not.

Of course shooters will be a big deal next gen but Call of Duty alone isn't going to be enough to make people go, "Shit. I gotta get me an Xbone to play that with my friends while subjecting myself to archaic and draconian rules." The same with Battlefield. I do feel, just by listening to casual gamers that I know, that people are getting sick of shooters going so far as to say it's, "The same old shit with a new coat of paint." The back is starting to bend and crack a bit. Yes the PS3 had no games at the beginning of this generation but just judging from what we've seen that isn't going to happen again. Killzone alone, no matter how mediocre I think it looks (never been a fan of Killzone personally), is better than every single launch game for the PS3 combined. I think that the new Assassin's Creed game comes out at the same time with a few others (I don't know the full launch lineup, but nobody really does yet).

The games will come. XBox has Gears, Forza, and Halo. They've milked those three franchises for the past two or three years. You can't keep going back to the well like that expecting a flash flood of cash every single time, even if it is Gears, Forza, and Halo.

The Xbone has one thing going for it, a weird bromance fellatio relationship that developed recently with EA. Probably because they placated EA with the whole used games thing and also because of Peter Moore. Depending on what EA does with their games it could be interesting. But that's the only real curveball I can see happening and even then they're not going to alienate a whole audience either. They're not stupid.

Then.. tell OP about it.. if that's who you're addressing or your just talking.

It's been very interesting talking to some of my friends who aren't as "hardcore" or whatever. Despite all this stuff, a lot of them still say they're getting an Xbox One, just because they all had 360s instead of PS3s.

Well sure it's still going to sell to a bunch of brand loyalist casuals, and probably sell fine, hell it might even catch some sort of mainstream success with all the tv bruha or whatever and outsell sony 2 -1.

This is almost the same position the PS3 was in a bunch of years ago and that eventually worked it self all out. But in the hearts and minds of the hardcore if it doesn't deliver, slowly but surely that will turn it's fortunes as a gaming console.

In eight years as we wrap up the XB1/PS4 generation the amount of money spent by someone who bought the sony console and by someone who bought the MS console will be completely indistinguishable.

People who think this will end the Xbox are retarted, Sony bounced back from the awful PS3 conference and they have a lot less money then MS does.

I'm still holding out that $399 is the watered down PS4 SKU.

Is that because their xbox live transfers over? I'm just curious about how much sway brand loyalty has.

Sure there will be loyal people picking up the xbox. And then there are those who don't have any self restraint and will just buy whatever you put in front of them.

But for the rest, I urge you to take a hard look at what each system is offering, the games, the services, all the string attached to each. I mean, we are talking about Halo here right? Everything else will be on PC and/or PS4 too eventually. It's really Halo and I guess Forza but Forza is pretty well matched by other franchises. I don't think Halo is worth dropping $500 on an under-clocked PS4 with 2 CPU cores and 20% of the GPU cores turned off.

I'm trying to figure it out too. I think it's just Xbox is the thing they know and they're fine sticking with that. I've definitely talked to a couple people who seem ready to switch but there's still some who don't care about the always online or used game stuff (or have convinced themselves that they don't) and are willing to just buy the thing that says Xbox.

I think it's important to note that the Kinect was 150 bucks, and sold over 25 million units, so there're definitely a segment of the population who is more than willing to pay an extra 100 bucks for Kinect functionality.

Also, Microsoft currently has a stronger exclusive lineup. Sony has Killzone and Infamous, and neither one of those has the sway of Halo or Dead Rising. The indie stuff is nice, but the people who care about those games will also know that all those games are readily available on PC.

Do I think PS4 will outsell the Xbox One? Yes

Do I think the Xbox One will be anything close to a horrible burning failure? No.

Doesn't that argument fail to account for both Sony's businesses as a consumer electronics firm and their large family of entertainment producing subsidiaries? That specific argument suggests that Sony should be rolling in cash thanks to the mass appeal of televisions, phones, music players, laptops and blu-rays - while reality seems to say that being a manufacturer of premium home entertainment devices is slowly killing the company. Meanwhile, Sony's entertainment producing divisions are a profit machine and MS has exactly one piece of unique tv content (Halo) to its name. Beyond using the Xbox One as a TV remote, what does MS' "focus on entertainment" consist of?

The downside of selling the Xbox as a tv companion is that they're competing with Comcast, Directv, Dish and a score of regional cable providers as well as Playstation and Nintendo. And Apple, and all of the other "streaming box" manufacturers. And the "smart tv" makers. That's a lot of competition and some of those competitors are the companies providing a lot of the content and functionality that the Xbox One is counting on.

As a fan of entropy, I find the potential for an utter catastrophe here to be quite tasty.

The only thing keeping me from getting an Xbox One is the restrictive ownership policies and the online check-ins. I like that the system has a multitasking and entertainment focus as that makes it more versatile and I think the lineup of games that Microsoft has shown is better than Sony's (I also prefer the aesthetic of the system / controller over the PS4). Twitch TV integration is really great too, as are the Xbox Live tweaks (no more points, expanded achievement system, day one digital downloads!). The new controller additions like impulse triggers are pretty neat too. Honestly it's all really good stuff, but I just can't bring myself to accepting their DRM and online / kinect requirements unless they miraculously had a pricing structure similar to Steam.

Edit: Also, the fact that the system is MORE EXPENSIVE THAT IT'S MORE POWERFUL COMPETITION is really odd to me. Seems like the Kinect requirement is really driving the price up too much for something that really isn't that important

I think it's gonna be fine, I'm just more interested in what Sony's doing with the PS4. I don't know if I'd consider myself a fanboy but I preferred the PS3 to the 360 and I think I know where I'm gonna put my money this generation.

See cuz, as long as absolutely every comment online says PS4 has won, then it won. Its fact, you can't compete with it. See I say PS4 slaughtered Microsoft, so its true. Microsoft is so fucked, its awful.

But nope, it doesn't seem its very boned at all. Nope.

Microsoft can't launch at $100 more than PS4... I just don't think they can let that happen. Sony has EU in the bag at this point, but at that price difference Microsoft are going to struggle in the US as well. $100 cheaper gives PS4 a commanding lead, which Microsoft would struggle to recover from.

They don't have a ton of viable options for getting the price down though, besides just taking the hit. They could consider a non-Kinect version, or even a non-gaming version which just does the TV/camera bullshit, but the name alone pretty much rules either of those out.

How they respond now depends on how much faith they really have in this Kinect/TV thing. My gut feeling is that they bottle it and gradually start taking back the restrictions until they are on a level playing field with PS4 again, and eventually take the hit on the price too. When it comes down to it, $100 is neither here nor there compared to how much money they'll expect to see put through one of those things over its lifetime. The box is a storefront and getting it into living rooms is everything - if they have to take a hit to make that happen I think they will.

If they're hanging their hat on Titanfall I think they're really in trouble. It looks great, but it's not going to be what Halo was to Xbox or what Gears was to 360. Those were revolutionary in a way that was obvious to anybody with eyes. Titanfall is only a thing if you are informed enough to know and appreciate the pedigree of the developer.

Real Talk? How dare you. Xboners don't wanna hear Real Talk. They stick their fingers in their ears and go " LA LA LALA LA I CAN"T HEAR YOU!"

I have a question that I don't think has been asked anywhere and I apologize if it has been asked & answered. What happens to your game library access if you get banned from XBox Live? That should be on the minds of anyone that is deciding on getting the Xbox One.

@internetdetective: I have yet to see any of this

Ok. The PS3 and Xbox sold almost the same: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/10/report-ps3-surpasses-xbox-360s-worldwide-shipped-total,

If loyalist buy the same console as the last generation it's a tie, but them you have pissed off Xbox fans, people that have lousy internet connection and people who will choose to buy the cheaper one. I don't think that the Xbone is boned, however I do think it will sell less than the PS4...

@dhunter329: It seems like it's one of those question marks that MS needs to answer. Their policies are pretty unclear still. You might find it somewhere if you look at enough interviews or xbox forums, but I haven't heard much regarding what exactly happens. As far as I can tell it seems like the answer is, don't get banned.

This person speaks the truth. I really think if the check in period were something like 7 days or 14 days for your profile's "Home Console" only (the 1 hour rule has to stay in place for using your library on another machine) then I would have very few complaints about getting an Xbox One. As it is the $100 difference and extra rules are killing Microsoft's image. However, it's not as crazy as people on the internet seem to think.

Also, I've always thought the Kinect voice commands were the most interesting part of Kinect and now that all apps will be written with the Kinect in mind I'm interested in how that will evolve in the future.

We also live in a world where some or most of our friends list is full of people watching media stuff on their consoles(Netflix,Hulu Plus, Youtube, etc.) so I get what Microsoft is trying to sell to us. In reality though, The X-One better have a plan of action for holiday soon or it's going to get bum-rushed.

The hardcore are the one's who spend the most money, Microsoft has shot itself in the foot, its not THE END for Microsoft, but there DRM issues are not going to make people happy because they won't offer the services Steam does, they will be perceived as Ubisoft was with their DRM. I get where your coming from with your expectations of the the FPS crowd flocking to the Xbox One, but this generation is a lot different than the last one. Consumers are way smarter and way more on the up and up when it comes to these things. Of course, I may have too much faith in humanity, but whatever, I'm an optimist.

In the end, people will go with what they know.