i think the biggest reason is the last ditch effort to figure how to add the rest of the memory.

i was completely unimpressed with what was shown by the ps4 at this point, killzone looked very good, but not too impressive and infamous was so-so for me. showing a system what a idea,too bad sony missed that memo.
the specs of the ps4 looked great, the controller looked like shit. the touch screen looked bad and the remote play wont be used anymore than it was with the ps3/vita combo and sony knows this. a wasted feature by sony as far as i am concerned. the only way the remote feature will be used by alot of devs is if sony, puts a ps4/vita system bundle together and keeps one for the life of the ps4 and that is the only. in this world economy , not enough people have the spare income to buy a ps4 and a vita for that feature to be meaningful at all.
i will wait until e3 to find out more about the ps4 on wether i will buy one or not, but all the extra features they showed i dont give a shit about, i want a pure gaming system and ps4 gives me most of that .
the next xbox has alot too prove as well , when its shown off. so far neither sony or m$ has my support.

To all the people saying why it's show important to show the box:

It makes the system tangible. It makes it seem as though it does exsist, and that it is actually coming; regardless of whether it's the focus or not. It also confirms the size of the system and that it will indeed feature a disc drive, USB slots etc.

It just makes the whole thing seem real; and is an obvious omission.

So, this is what the opposition has chosen to latch onto? Oh no, poor Sony. I guess that means there is really nothing else to hate on. Which is good, as this "negative" will be taken care of in just a few months.

ITT:

MS fans talk about how damning it is that Sony didn't show the console
Sony fans all talk about how it doesn't matter

Honestly I think its a mixture of both. Yes it does feel weird not to see the console, but would have seeing the
plastic box somehow changed the presentation?

while it doesnt matter to me because like most people have said it will just be a black box, people wont care about it till they actually see it. pretty funny of Nelson though. im hope Sony hits back for the lulz xd

It'll be an invisible case, just to troll people.

MS is scared

Bladeforce - Who evidently needs to learn something about Xerox's PARC.

The propaganda is strong with this one.

-this user was warned for this post by amp316

I wouldn't mess with Yoda, looking serious he is.

After few pages of this thread,i think you know why now