It's no Sony 2013, but it's not the worst either, at least from my pov. What we're seeing now is talks of tech specs and talks to and for devs, rather than games, consumer stuff etc. I feel like half the gamers are seeing these dev talks as boring (which they will, because a large swath will not understand how it works, let alone what it is), which is fine, but they'll have to wait for the PR marketing and actual demos being shown off closer to the system's eventual launch.

That said, I do also feel like this is what would happen, when MS doesn't fuck up. See this gen, MS royally fucked themselves right out the gate, and in turn that handed Sony bragging rights, a large, insane chunk of mind-share, dev support all around and general cheers/praise, while MS pulled their pants down and shat on the bed. Now we're seeing an MS near the very tail end of the gen, pulling a Sony from last gen, where they pick themselves up and start to do something about their own predicament, and I think it could very well pay off for them next gen, assuming they don't pull anti-consumer bs (the very last thing you want to do, is pull that sort of crap on consumers).

All we need now is Nintendo to pull out a refresh system from the chest, and we'll be getting some good levels of competition going once more (because atm, I'm really starting to see Switch as just another Wii again, instead of it being more than it could have been).

End of the day though, Sony still has a big chunk of mind-share to roll with, so I doubt they'll trip hard right out the gate, or suffer much.

1 - 360 had way more bad PR, you must be young to not remember but every day on the gaming news there was talks about RROD and only 3 months warranty, and the HD DVD thing that never got off the ground, and the fact it didn't have bluray or wi-fi or HDMI port. your memory is not as good as mine it seems.

2 - That's because xbox can never win, its impossible, sony has Japan on lockdown, and almost the same for Europe, the only country in Europe that even cared for xbox was the UK. Most other countries bought the 360 due to how easy to pirate games it was, fact. 

3 - The only reason xbox still sells a bit is huge sales, at many points the 360 has been at half the price of the ps3, brand new. And at many points the xbox one has dropped to 120euros brand new with a game black Friday. If prices were matched, the ps4 would have had outsold the xbox by way more.

4 - Sony did a lot of mistakes, but in that generation Microsoft did way more, you could say ps3 was expensive, but it was a lot more reliable, had the cheapest bluray, more storage, a better cpu, hdmi port, free online, a more premium build, integrated wi-fi, just top of my head. The only 2 mistakes sony did was to launch much later and way more expensive.

Sony has not even started the PS5 marketing. Thats the thing. PS5 is so sought after that even the smallest of info drops becomes globally trending and so people think its being marketed.

PS5 tweet is the second most liked gaming related tweet of all time.
PS5 instagram post is the most liked gaming related post of all time.
The GDC talk had 600-700k concurrent watches and youtube, has been #1 trending for a day and is already at 11 million views.

Sony still have all the cards in hand. They're only big mess up imo is the BC situation.

Read again. PS4 BC on PS5 is as native as it can get when they put the logic of PS4 into the PS5 silicon.

Jealousy? Nope, I bought Pro and if Xbox games were my think I would have bought X1X no problem. Still that is a new machine not a swap the GPU. Don't expect a console that you can swap the GPU every year or so, that would be a PC, no reason to expect it.

1 - 360 had worse PR than the PS3? That's rich.

2 - This tells me that its a complete waste of time talking to you.

3 - Making excuses

4 - I go back to my answer to point 2.

I think that PS certainly meant for the general public to see it, but that wasn't the main reason for doing it. The talk was happening for devs either way.

PS knows the spec comparison will look worse for them to those who don't understand hardware at all, especially based on the TF narrative that's been built up this gen.

I would bet the thought process was that because people will see what they deem worse specs for PS5 after the talk, if they allow the talk to be accessible to everyone, then a bunch will watch it. Those people, assuming more so casuals, will see a well dressed, well spoken, highly intelligent, calm cool individual, explaining why the PS5 is so great. Even though many won't understand the majority of it, they will hopefully think, 'wow, this guy really knows his stuff so PS5 looks like it'll be pretty great'! They also may be bored, but who cares, as long as they aren't only paying attention to the paper specs with no context.

PS isn't trying to please the hardcore fans here, because they know that hardcore fans care way more about the games, and based on what a PS4 can do, the hardware itself isn't the end all be all that some casuals may believe it is. That's not to say every casual who watches it will be hypnotized into buying a PS5, but it's better than having them rely on paper specs and the negativity that's being portrayed right now.

PS knew that was certainly going to happen, and wants to avoid it as much as possible, without showing their full hand just yet. All we've seen is one card, and it's not an ace.

The issue is that you consider that a positive.

Sony have clearly decided to waive the white flag on pressing the boundaries with specs. They feel they can do this because PS4 sold so well. Their online GaaS offering is relatively poor. The PS3 was an overly-complex, hideously expensive machine that spent 2 years with no games because the PS2 sold so well.

On the other hand, Microsoft lost the current generation. This led them to:

1. Produce an immensely powerful console
2. Develop netflix-for-games at insane value
3. Put ALL their first party titles on that service day 1
4. Purchase or build half a dozen new studios.

It would not be a good thing for gamers if Sony crush Microsoft next generation. Only for Sony shareholders.

That has always been flawed thinking. MS is in the games business to make money, same as Sony. They are constrained by the fact they can only invest (in research, in price, in studios) to the extent they think they can make their money back and then a profit premium.

Investors gave Microsoft some leniency for Xbox and Xbox 360 to develop market share. Those days are long gone - Xbox is expected to make money.

I find it funny, not positive. It will be funny that after sales starts people bragging will just go away just like start of current gen.

Nope, Sony didn't waive any white flag, actually PS5 is pushing it much more than PS4 did, even Cerny admitted on the deep dive (that on PS4 they gone full off-the-shelf for making it easy to program) this gen they are trying to make it even easier to program but with a lot more custom parts. Also the SSD and 3D Audio are really pushing all the boundaries. Perhaps you don't care or like or consider the only spec boundary that is relevant is TFlop.

PS2 was very good for customers even with it crushing competition to an ammount PS5 wouldn't be able to, and this gen was also great even with PS4 selling 3:1 against Xbox.

The backwards compatibility is unclear, it could be they are testing the games to see if they run, and they only tested 100 and most will run, but xbox is guaranteeing all xbox one games to run on launch day, so there's that, and then xbox still has a lot of 360 and a few xbox OG in 4K that already run. Ninja gaiden is a huge example of a game that looks amazing and plays great and it tops most current gen games for fun.

Not to mention HDR in old games on xbox as was demonstrated. Sony didn't mention hardware upgrades to ps4 games

I'd prefer in 3 years time to upgrade the GPU rather than buying a Pro console, there's a reason they made the console modular, I'm intelligent enough to think it was made like that for a reason, and no it was not to save on costs of glue and screws.

I am actually think skipping this next gen and go for PC, but surely the gaming market don't want me to do that, because I might get temped with piracy and emulation, because back in Portugal games don't drop in price for years and I'm not going to invest in a 70euro game that I have no idea if I'm going to like.

PC has the advantage that it would be much cheaper than the consoles, I could sell my MacBook for like 600euros and build a nice PC for like 800euros and then Free online, even tough I don't play online but if it was free I could try it once in a while.

The prospect of backwards compatibility on PC with hundreds of thousands of games all with updated graphics is exciting too. And also, my ps4 pro controller works on PC and its already better than both the ps5 and series X controllers. So I'm ready for PC and could keep my ps4 pro just for the exclusives and the nacon revolution unlimited controller works wirelessly on both just by flipping a switch in the back.

My point is, both sony and Microsoft will have to convince me this time around, because by the end of the year I will settle in my house no more travelling for work, so I finally can choose to go PC for the first time in 15 years.

PS - I'm probably be less active in gaming next gen, because going back to Portugal to live for good means Ill go back to my old jazz band and philharmonic band, so free time for gaming will be short, so 1 device (PC) that could do everything (PC, nintendo console emulation, media, work) would be better than getting several consoles. Specially because the playstations do not even read media, at least the xbox does with VLC. Most my movies is in HEVC and most my music in Apple lossless/Flac, so that's another thing sony has to work on to convince me. And even tough xbox has VLC is still very slow on my X, I had to buy a TV box (beelink GT Pro) which cost me almost as much as the xbox itself, just to have smooth and fast media playback.