I see no correlation between the two events. Gamers will see the Sony news, phone enthusiasts will see the Apple news, both will either rave or shit on what they saw online depending on whom they've sold their soul to. Everyone else may or may not see one of these corporations revealing an expensive new electronic device and go on with their lives.

I guess I'm in the minority, I see this as being a negative for Sony.
Other news can be overshadowed: for instance I don't remember anything else that was in the news on a particular September 11th sure there were lots of journalists then and other things happened but they were overshadowed by another event. I know this is an extreme example but to say there is no impact to Sony seems shortsighted. Journalists only have so much time, consumers only have so much time. Isn't everyone a potential customer? Why advertise outside of gaming sites, could it be for consumer exposure perhaps?

It may be a negative, but how noticable will this negative be in terms of sales? This isn't the only chance potential consumers will get to hear about the PS4 Slim and the PS4 Neo. There will be loads of ads and promotions over the next few years that any potential buyer of a PS4 Slim/Neo will hear about it. The net sales impact will be so miniscule that you might as well ignore it.

My bad, I didn't think the OP was talking about sales, only Media attention (i.e. free exposure).  I'll agree this isn't going to sink Sony or even have much of any impact on sales. 

nope

The OP is talking about media exposure, but really, the only reason we care about media exposure is because of it's impact on sales, so if it won't impact the sales, then it's not a problem.

Sorry, I was mistaken about active users.  The actual hard number is that there are >1B active Apple devices in use today.  Consequently your repeat buyer explanation doesn't hold water.  The active devices figure must be coming from crossover sales of Macs, Apple TVs and Apple Watches, and the iPhone no doubt comprises a substantial portion of those.  Do you believe that only half of those 1B are iPhones?  If not, what fraction of those 1 billion active devices do you think is iPhones?

 I understand they will likely make up any lost attention but they will have to pay for it as you inadvertently pointed out, which still equates to a bad thing. "There will be loads of ads and promotions over the next few years" all of which will cost them money.  That said said I'm sure hosting the event won't be free but now it's impact will be diminished even if only a little. You host events to draw attention and disseminate information.  The larger the audience the better (provided you don't botch it).

I get you OP, and yes.
In fact not only Sony, but any other company that don't announce something pretty pretty impressive and easy to fit in the mind of the mainstream audience.

the playstation brand is too big to be dwarfed in this town.