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BlueFalcon on 06 February 2013
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HappySqurriel said:

While the fanboy assumption seems to be that developers desperately want to work with the most powerful hardware, I think the reality is that the Wii U and "XBox 720" are (potentially) so similar in processing power because their consultations with third party publishers and developers indicated that they didn’t want cutting edge hardware.

Looks like those discussions don't bear resemblence to what developers are saying regarding PS4 vs. Xbox 720. 

Here is an interesting piece of information that makes PS4 look even better and possibly explains why MS is going with 8GB of system memory because their OS overhead is greater. I honestly didn't think things would get even worse for Xbox 720 but they just did:

"Though the architectures of the next-gen Xbox and PlayStation both resemble that of PCs, several development sources have told us that Sony’s solution is preferable when it comes to leveraging power. Studios working with the next-gen Xbox are currently being forced to work with only approved development libraries, while Sony is encouraging coders to get closer to the metal of its box. Furthermore, the operating system overhead of Microsoft’s next console is more oppressive than Sony’s equivalent, giving the PlayStation-badged unit another advantage."

http://www.edge-online.com/news/the-next-xbox-always-online-no-second-hand-games-50gb-blu-ray-discs-and-new-kinect/

MS is about to walk into a gun fight with a knife. PS4's GPU is rumored to be 50% more powerful and now PS4 is rumored to be easier to code for/optimize and it has a more efficient OS. That's a trifecta of WIN for Sony if true. That means the rumored 50% GPU advantage could grow even more if MS does the unthinkable move and shoves a Windows OS/DX11 API overhead into their console. This would bring all the inefficiencies PCs have to deal with due to API overhead of the OS and inability of developers to code directly to the metal of the GPU hardware.

Also, the rumors that PS4 is the more powerful console have been remarkably consistent, similar to the rumors that Wii U was not a true next generation console in terms of hardware and that proved true. 

Then you have other potential deal breakers that keep surfacing regarding Xbox 720:

 

  1. Always on internet connection
  2. Activiation codes for games (i.e., blocking the sale of used games)
  3. Kinect 2.0 shipping with every console
^ I do not want any of those next generation "features"