MS is afraid of every competitor in every market they're in. It's called zero sum thinking and is why they're so ruthless... They believe that any competitor, no matter how small, can potentially come along with a game-changing product and crush them.
As far as a lot of the points you make, some are based on faulty assumptions (such as the idea that Sony could have released the same machine earlier), while others ignore that fact that Sony is bleeding red very badly and is probably more worries about staying viable as a company than about winning this round of the console war... If not, then they're crazy.








