Remember back at E3 2013 when Don Mattrick revealed the always-online Xbox One with its non-shareable games? That event nearly demolished the Xbox brand altogether, and it's taken three years for the company to put the pieces back together. Sony won this current generation simply by doing the complete opposite of Microsoft and listening to its consumer base. Now the roles have been reversed--Sony's new PlayStation 4.5 is the company's pre-E3 2013 Xbox One, and Microsoft has found itself in a very advantageous position to steal this generation.
Microsoft has a singular advantage over Sony: the new Windows 10 Dev Mode. This new tool allows devs to make a single game that's playable on both PC and Xbox, alleviating the need for multiple ports. Sony's PlayStation 4.5, on the other hand, is a nightmare for devs because they now have to make two PS4 ports of every game, meaning multi-plat will need four ports (PS4, PS4.5, Xbox One, and PC). Every PS4 game released after October needs to have two versions--a PS4 and a PS4.5 flavor that supports 4K upscaling. As a result of this news, the new PS4.5 is pissing off lots of devs, and BioWare's co-founder even went so far as to say its a "gigantic pain in the ass".
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/51730/microsoft-unique-position-disrupt-sonys-console-reign/index.html