How could the announcement catch ms off guard when it didn't for us? They announced the announcement.

How does sending Devkits mean nothing? It means they actually had a physical working system before Sony did. That doesn't make sense. You can't announce something and release specs without knowing what it is. MS could have done what Sony did and announced first but decided to wait. I'm assuming they want the hype to last till release or as I said above, a release reveal.

I believe Sony's dev kits were the first to get leaked and watched all got wind of all three versions. We haven't caught wind of all three versions of durango as fast as we did for Sony which ended in January.

That doesn't mean squat though. Rumors of durango dev kits being released were first on the scene. If anything less leaks are better. It will keep the suspense for the official reveal.

I'm sure MS is worried about what Sony is doing. Just like I'm sure Sony is worried about what MS is doing. It would be foolish not to be concerned with what your biggest competition is doing mere months before a console launch. The ball is in Microsofts court and they need to bring something big to the table if they don't want to be overshadowed going into E3 and then the holiday season. 

letting sony get all the mindshare in the next gen console race

Actually, that Microsoft was revealing the console in April was reactionary. May was the intended target all along.

Microsoft is, for better or for worse, a very traditional company. May was the timeframe when they announced the Xbox 360, and since the Xbox 360 has served them well, they'll use May to announce it again. Just like they use November for their Xbox releases. Both consoles, and Kinect were all released in early November. MS isn't going to mess with tradition.

The only thing Microsoft is doing is going back with its original plans.

I'd say MS won't announce until they're nearly ready to ship.

I honestly have no idea what you are saying

@ironman: You do realize devkits change right? Depending on the number and amount of changes they go through different companies may take a longer process than the rest. Being unprepared to reveal has nothing to do with sending out the 'first' dev kits out earlier than Sony. Making a big reveal such as the next system of the company takes a lot of preparation. First party and other software reveals, venue, PR etc one has to be very careful and do the best job possible. 

About this line "You can't announce something and release specs without knowing what it is." what do you mean exactly? MS hasn't released any specs >_> Outside of leaks/rumors we don't have any concrete evidence about the nextbox yet. About keeping the hype going..this is arguable really. But not sure if it's a suitable discussion for this thread. 

and how the hell can you say sony didn't catch them off guard? Hell don't think anyone expected them to do a reveal in February. Even the sony PR made it sound like they won't. The rather amusing MS PR in response to it kinda showed they weren't that happy about it. 

at first Sony was waiting for MS to show off the next xbox which led to the sony conference which felt a little bit rushed but was interesting

If they were waiting..they didn't wait long considering they announced the event end of January this year. Doubt they were waiting

and why do you think the conference was rushed?