where have you been the past years?! This time of the year means nothing saleswise. Look at last year, the Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 for the whole year during the holiday season. The years before the Wii did the same thing with both competitors.

And this advertising nonsense need to stop as well. They spent 5,000,000,000 USD (5 billion) on marketing in 2010. They are the mainsponsor for the UEFA Champions League directly advertising the PS Vita or the Playstation 3 (or the Playstation brand before) since 1997. They just paid some extra cash to expand this partnership for the next 3 years. Sony was the mainsponsor for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, too. Don't act like this little poor kid Sony is being pushed by the rude and rich bully MS. 

For comparison, MS Marketing Budget is 1 billion USD / year for the whole company. Of course the Xbox 360 is a much smaller part for MS than the PS3 is for Sony. If this reflects for the marketing budgets as well, Sony is probably spending more cash on marketing the PS3 than MS for the Xbox 360.

Everything sounds good, but this is the usual SONY bull**** i hate.

What is the point of even spending resources in something like this? No one can assure that PS4 owners will have Vitas aswell, and probably wont. No one will develop software for the feature because of that. This whole mentality SONY has that it has to have a checklist of things others (nintendo usually) have, even though they completely miss the point. Bet on your strengths and believe in them, stop trying to be someone you're not.

If your console isnt designed around it, stop trying to waste everyones time and work on something useful. I swear SONY makes the same thing with the Vita just so fanboys can come out and say "oh SONY  consoles can do it too!" when in fact, they cant because they arent designed around it nor does it work properly (like the touch screen controls for Vita, they make no sense when you dont have a second screen since you're just putting your fingers in front of the screen your supposed to be looking at).

Aside from that, and based on the rumors and my past history with Microsoft this cycle, i am hoping things work out well and i want to go back to the Playstation next gen. So, Sony better get their act together this time. I'm not expecting them to innovate, im expecting them to stick to what they do best and stop trying to fill in check lists for comparisons with Nintendo and Microsoft. Dont be afraid to say: "We are a games machine that is proud to offer the best game software - the real thing. No shoving gimmicks down customers throats here."

Japan alone means nothing. if Xbox can sell Like Wii in 2008 in the Americas and gain ever more sales in EMEA then Ps4 is pretty much lost.

Also Playstation brand isnt selling anymore like Ps2 days, Vita proves that, nobody is buying Vita, its a fail.

Launching earlier would give them that much needed advantage, just as long as the machine is affordable and games are releasing.

haha go home. 

When you pull numbers out of your **, try to stay at least a little in reality....

"Microsoft, which also serves as a vendor for most media shops, ranks No. 32 on Ad Age's 100 Leading National Advertisers report, with its domestic advertising budget alone totaling more than $1.1 billion."

That's 1.1 billion for you. In the US alone. On media advertising alone.

wanna bet ?

I had the very same number, but thought it was for their global business.

*edit* found my mistake. Thank you.

*edit²* Title of your article:

Microsoft Splits $1B Media Duties Between Starcom MediaVest, Universal McCann

in the text:

In a statement, Universal McCann said it is "proud of everything we have created together with Microsoft and we will continue to serve them proudly globally in the more than 35 markets around the globe."

--> not US alone?!

No one is gonna release before the other, they both will release in Holiday 2013.