Microsoft hasn't handled pre-launch as well as Sony, that's true, which has been a surprise for me, but I'm not sure how important that will end up being. In my opinion, Microsoft has more of the "casual-core" gamer, a demographic that spends a lot of time gaming in a single genre, like sports or FPS, and thus doesn't really follow gaming news as a whole. I think most of this group will be like, "a new Xbox? Cool," and drop their money down without ever knowing that Microsoft flubbed up their PR.
That being said, however, they're not exactly inspiring consumer confidence at the moment, and might end up losing some of the gamers who do follow gaming news. Some people think that the XO will see wide adoption by the general public because of its television features, though I'm not one of them. If they don't, and they do end up dropping some of their fanbase, then the XO might see marketshare that's down from the 360.
