As the title says - discuss if Sony showed anything last night that may be concerning to Microsoft.

My personal opinion:

I think Microsoft doesn’t need to worry about anything Sony announced here.

Better hardware is the expected for both consoles. Which one has 5-10% extra power is not a game changer anyone will lose sleep over.

What else is new that Sony showed off here? Social features. I am pretty sure that MS is well aware of social features judging by Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 abilities to integrate socially in to everything.

Some of the streaming stuff Sony showed off was pretty interesting, but Microsoft could easily one up them with their cloud infrastructure (see Azure being number one cloud service) and software experience they have. 

Bottom line is that I think Sony has an idea of what Microsoft is bringing and they realized it's better to announce the console early and get some public and developer attention instead of competing at E3 and ending up in Microsoft’s shadow. 

Square Enix... if they show up like that at the MS announcement...

I wouldn't say MS is worried, but I would say they are paying attention.

Sony and MS are playing a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors and Sony just jumped the gun and threw Scissors. If MS doesn't throw Rock they deserve to lose.

haha...love it!

I think there is one thing they need to be worried about, their price point. The PS4 is clearly going to be expensive, and if Microsoft weakens their hardware a little bit to undercut them on the price($300/$350), Microsoft could get a huge advantage.

no-but sony surely kept some bullets for the e3.
that's why games like gt6 or UC4 weren't announced and the console design not shown.
I think when Sony or MS have some real innovative ideas they won't tell us before e3 to prevent being copied too soon.

Eyetoy/kinect thingy is allready being done better with the next Xbox.
Smartglass allready exists with 360
Social features/apps MS has 0 to worry about
Cross game chat has been done on 360 for several years.
MS allready has cloud tech of their own, just more hush hush about it.
Forza 5 > their driving game
Halo 5 > Killzone
Destiny, Watchdogs, Witcher 3 will be on Xbox.
Throw in a LONG OVERDUE core Rare title, Fable MMO thats been rumored, Blacktusk Studios AAA game, Ryse gameplay, some 3rd party deal, and you got a winner.

Introducing Xbox Plus would also be nice

I think they'll be pretty similar, for the most part. Lots of social media functions. I see Microsoft spending a lot more time on Kinect 2.0 than on traditional games, unlike Sony. We'll see a lot of dancing, family games, and sports presentations, then a lot of multi-media stuff, then Halo or something like it at the end. I'm interested to see if Microsoft's controller does anything new.

I'm still expecting Sony to hold some things back for TGS.

Yes, greatly.

> 2013 <

I dont think Xbox can go brawl it out with PS and win if they release at the same time, 360 early release was the most crutial aspect of the PS3/360 war.  

Yes. They announced the FREAK"N PS4!

Quiver, shake, tremble, etc. etc.

Let's see what MS has in store.


But, it seems like Sony isn't messing their console up like they did with the PS3. They have been working on this console for 5 years, working with devs to make a console they want, bumped up the RAM to 8GB of GDDR5, they have social functions, control compatibility among a variety of devices; the system just looks really good.

Despite the missteps Sony made, the PS3 is going to outsell the 360 and has been steadily selling more than it YoY. The PlayStation brand might not be what it was during the PS2 era, but it is still very big and Sony has more support world wide than MS does.

A knock out console could really cast MS in their shadow. And if the devs are standing behind it, things could really be different this gen. Wii U isn't selling like the Wii so the market is almost wide open, and if the PS4 is coming out this year than the Next Xbox has to either launch side by side or launch after. Things could be pretty shaky for the Xbox division next gen, and that's not even considering if their hardware/software approach is good. If they mess something up along those lines, they could really risk the gen.