Whoever say the main problem was not the reveal, 100% did not follow videogames in 2013, or at least not as much as now.

That shit is still legendary

Online only DRM was one of the biggest PR blunders for sure, no one wanted or asked for that shit. This is on par with $599 levels of shooting yourself in the foot.

I think the starting library of xbox one exclusive was better.
the problem was the price, kinect, tv, physical drm, always online.
When they finally got a good position wit policies, the ps4 exclusive games started being better.
also, multiplats were better on ps4.

But also, xbox is not a playstation. the branding itself is responsible. 

It had an atrocious reveal event focusing not on games but on multimedia functions.

It had forced Kinect inclusion bringing the price up to a level nobody wanted despite it being the marginally weaker console.

They had horrible plans for DRM, so bad that even when they rolled them back it still hurt their image.

The Xbox 360's latter years were pretty barren for exclusives, leading the console to slow down and the PS3 to eclipse it, thus altering momentum on both sides

The launch games sucked.

The subsequent exclusive games were mediocre or disappointing

There were virtually no new IPs and many of the games being developed for the system were shelved

They made it so that all games were on PC as well

They continued to not release any games, focusing more on sheer power for the Xbox One X. Power and Backwards compatibility in the later stages

Ps4 was an absolute beast of a console, hitting all the right notes and punching Microsoft when it was down.

So, basically, Xbox failed in virtually every way that matters while the Ps4 learned from the Ps3's mistakes and delivered in price, performance, and platform exclusives without requiring any of the chaff and side garbage nobody cared about, like Kinect.

I was A HUGE fan of the 360 but even before launch, I knew the PS4 was gonna dominate. What advantages did the Xbox One have? None.

There you go.

(I still enjoy the Xbox One more. It had a ton of features that I enjoyed. PS4 has VR, though... I'm a strange beast.)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The videogame market had so many legendary events, right now we are living one of them with Switch breaking records, COVID, and PS5/XSX on the horizon, but no matter what, 2013 will NEVER be topped.

I miss those times.

The Xbox used UMDs...?

As most people have said: Games.

If Xbox had better games then the launch debacle would not have mattered one bit.

A multitude of reasons, despite the 360 having a year head start, the PS3 still eventually outsold. For as long as both those systems were on the market, with the exceptions of 2006 (PS3 launched in November, so of course the 360 sold better) and 2008, the PS3 has outsold the 360 every single year they went head to head on the market. So Microsoft was never truly able gain an advantage over Sony, not a long term one anyways.

Towards the end of the 7th generation from 2011-2013, the PS3 became the market leader and preferred console of choice amongst consumers. Because Sony was building up the strategy that has largely made the PS4 so successful: Games, superior hardware, games, more affordable prices (they did a lot of price cuts, I don't think Sony EVER made a profit off the PS3), games, games, blu-ray, and finally, GAMES.

So the momentum was already on Sony's side heading into Gen 8. And Microsoft had an uphill battle ahead of them. Chances are, if they both did well with their reveals, the PS4 would have still outsold the Xbox One, but it would have been a much closer battle than it ultimately turned out... If they both did well with their reveals.

That God Awful Xbox One reveal in 2013 was arguably the biggest shot in the foot in gaming history. To this day, I have never seen a company fall so flat on their face, not even Nintendo with the Wii U. Just an absolute dumpster fire. Everything that COULD go wrong, DID go wrong.
The DRM, always needs to be online, used game policies, mandatory Kinect, less powerful hardware, overemphasis on TV on a VIDEO GAME console, a severe LACK of video games, and $499.99. From that moment on, Sony won the fight before it even started. Microsoft set the bar so low, all Sony had to do was NOT fuck up and they'd win by default. Just about anything would have looked better by comparison.

Ever since then, Microsoft has been trying to recover from the damage that reveal caused. They still haven't completely gotten over it, but they have come a long way. I still think that the PS5 is going to outsell the XSX, but I think it'll be much closer than the PS4/XBO head-to-head was.

It all comes down to having a compelling experience by which a console can be sold. The PS4 has it by being conservative, the Switch has it by being revolutionary, and the Xbox kind of fell in the middle (although, not nearly as bad as Wii U) where it wasn’t revolutionary, and it wasn’t conservative either - it was just a console with similar experiences to the PS4 that people would rather play on PS4 - especially since PS4 offered a lot more. It’s kind of like GameCube and Xbox, it was like buying neutered versions of PS2 - while they were technically more powerful, they also had weird and less appealing controllers than the familiar PS2 design. They also didn’t have nearly the selection of PS2, so were ultimately not nearly as compelling. Why would you buy a PlayStation with a half-baked Celda game, a gimmicky Mario Kart and 3D Mario game with smaller visions than the last generation? Why not buy the real PS2 with quadruple the library, better features, and most of the iconic experiences of the time (Like FFX, MGS, and GTA), bigger and bolder visions.

Same deal with the Xbox One, what it all breaks down to is it’s not as compelling a product. So, the only reason to buy it aside from some crazy deal is some kind of fanboyist refusal to go for the products that offer you something different and/or something more. The other reason to buy an Xbox One is you have the other console(s) you want already, and still want something new - and so, by virtue of existing, it becomes the option.

Anyway, Xbox One wasn’t all bad. You can ask why it did so much better than Wii U and you’ll find similar reasons.
Being a Nintendo fanboy (and requiring XCX) is my reasoning for buying Wii U, but make no mistake: I am not an advocate for Wii U and strongly disagree it was anywhere near as compelling as even the Wii would have been during those years had Nintendo continued focus on that and brought out a Super Mario Galaxy 3.

And yes, I am AWARE my post is the metaphorical equivalent of a drunk drive that doesn’t at all keep on the track =P