Yeah the development has been going for years but the last few months were def not planned for from the beginning, thats why people think its rushed.

"Did we have a few challenges between May and August? Sure."

Understatement of the forever.

Admit it Microsoft, Sony caught you with your pants down.

Edit: It's not like they rushed the Xbox 360 or anything.

This is good news, it sounds like they are taking this hardware release a little more serious than they did with the 360.

If I had to guess, I'd say the "core" of the One's design was finished by early 2011 or so, once the Kinect was a definite success. Since then, they've probably just created alternate models with more or less restrictions and RAM or whatnot. That would explain why they could just "flip the DRM switch off" and such.

Why did they mention steam with pre-loading games but not PS3?

Sony wasn't caught off guard, Microsoft kamikazeed their launch by rushing the tech a year early instead of staying on R&D. They were so desperate to beat Sony they risked 60% of their marketshare up to 2010.

not really because sony knew what they were doing and they stuck with it.

Xbox one seems like Microsoft never really believed in it so didnt mind doing a one eighty.

Sony had as much hate towards blu-ray and $599 as microsoft got when the xbox one was announced.

What were the challenges between May - August? Are they talking about the DRM challenge, but that was gone in June?

If I said that "with only 2 months to go, it's weird that we don't have a definite release date for the One..."would that be a fair statement to make?

I genuinely don't know the answer to this question, don't usually pay attention to these things.