Saw this posted over on NeoGaf

Microsoft's next-gen silence at this week's Game Developers Conference has been dismissed as "more perception than reality," by Epic Games co-founder Mark Rein.  

PlayStation 4 has been an ever-present discussion point at the San Francisco event, with Sony publicly fostering developer relations and even showcasing controllers at its booth.  

However, Rein said that assumptions Microsoft didn't have a private presence at the conference "isn't true," and that on the public side it's simply a case of one platform holder having announced their new console and the other not.

 "I think that's more perception than reality," Rein said of Microsoft's suggested absence from GDC.  

"Microsoft has always been very developer centric with all of their platforms and that Sony is embracing that approach is wonderful. But I don't think it diminishes what Microsoft is doing.  "I don't think with developer relations anyone is trying to be public, it's just you're at GDC and Sony has the hardware to talk about, and Microsoft hasn't talked about it publicly yet. So I think it's just the difference between someone who can say the name of their console and someone who can't."

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/398604/xbox-silence-at-gdc-isnt-the-full-picture-says-epic-exec/

Not a single reply, speaks volumes about this site at the moment. This was of course obvious to most reasonable individuals.

Anyone that thinks MS has their head in the sand is kidding themselves. MS is waiting in the shadows for the right time to strike.

Well yeah it is behind the scenes and I'm sure they are doing what they need to be doing, but isn't the phrase perception is reality? And because of it Sony gets better press right now, and their GDC presence was very dominant to the public. While not one sided for the developers.

It makes me all the more curious what MS is going to reveal when they decide it is time.

it's obvious they have got things to show, its just that i bet they expected to show a lot of the 3rd party videos that sony showed...which means they have to come up with a different show, the only benifit that this gave sony was that, was it delayed the xbox reveal

if microsoft show the console off before e3, they might have had to use stuff that they planned to use from e3 to outshine the ps4, leaving them with less to actually show at e3, compare to sony who still have a console to reveal which in my opinion will have more attention,

Press means little to nothing almost a year before the release.  Who ever has the most attention during the holidays or launch is what you need to be looking at. Even E3 is way more important than anything that has happened in the first 6 months of the year.  GDC isnt even for gamers.  People made a big deal about nothing as usual. 

What do you want people to say?  It's kind of a no-brainer, as you said yourself.  Of course Microsoft is working hard on the Nextbox.  I doubt anyone would dispute that.  The point most people have been making isn't that Microsoft isn't doing anything, it's that it's a positive for Sony to be generating so much free press.

Training their skills with Fruit Ninja?

I mean everyone should be aware that developers and some others know what they can expect from the NextBox.
When people like Ubisoft say AssaCreed4 will be the best on the PS4 out of ALL Platforms they obviously have seen and worked on both.

Sony had the need to use the effect of surprise cause they had a lot to fix and convince others.
People are now aware the PS4 is a beast and everything gamers and developers wished for and that it won't be a 2nd PS3 at the start.
They did their job right and had the right timing - Microsoft doesn't really need that right now but of course they  probably don't like that every game is connected with the PS4 and everyone talks about it just cause their own console is still called a "rumor NextGen Console" no one is able to talk about.

Whats interesting is that Microsoft haven't really responded in any form what-so-ever. On top of this, there is an extensive amount of developer support for the PS4 being announced and hype is off the charts. And what people forget is that it's not like Sony has unloaded their guns, they are obviously saving a significant amount of ammo for E3 as well.

Whats troublesome for Microsoft, in my opinion, is that even with a strong E3 showing of the nextbox, all Sony seemingly has to do to stay ahead is just have a good E3, if Sony has a strong E3 as well, and drops some significant bombs in response to anything Microsoft announces, Microsoft just may be in some deep shit.