Power never determines a consoles success, however it doesn't mean it was never the narrative, the internet blows up, the fanboys start fighting while the average consumer really doesn't care, normally its the price that makes a bigger difference for them. If we want to be calling Xbox out for being power driven, than Sony has to be called out too. They pushed power with almost all their generations dating back to the PS2 vs Dreamcast with their Emotion Engine etc. Much like Xbox and Nintendo when they have/had the advantages.

You don’t even have to go back to last gen when it comes to NeoGAF and the power gap. Before the Cerny event all GAF could talk about was how the PS5 would be a 15TF beast with 32GB of RAM. That’s what spawned the “Xbox Power King Meme” thread there, a direct result of SonyGAF’s nonsense. From there the narrative shifted to SSD and I/O but it came back to the power narrative with FUD about how PS5 is actually more like RDNA2.5 while X|S is more 1.5. It’s pointless to debate about which side “started it” there, both sides have console warriors that take the FUD and bullshit to new levels. You’re right about that no doubt.

Thats basically what I said. When there are no games to talk about, power and many other things are the center of attention and no time is this more evident than at the start of a gen when  there are slim pickings. So thats something in past gens that I dont have to be on forums to know it was happening. But again im willing to bet that as those gens started kicking out their big hitters the conversation always switched back to the games each console can offer. So all that braging means nothing if you have nothing to show for it. Something thats more evident than ever as we see here with ps5 vs xsx. 

Definitely agree that price has a huge impact. Its the reason I went with the wii over the ps3, also zelda. But I ended up loving so many more games that came on the wii than on the ps3. Except the last of us, I still believe that was the game of that generation. 

You can name them, do it.

And read again what was posted. Go to the face-off threads on neogaf and you'll see people complaining about the gloating and talking about the delayed tools. If Xbox fans weren't complaining how would some of DF staff saying they are receiving a lot of bad message from that crowd or why would MS be responding?

It is on this article as well.

You seem to confuse fan bickering with company marketing and media coverage.

Sony didn't said PS4 was the strongest for several months before launch. They said how many Tflops it had, that it was easy to develop (acknowledging PS3 wasn't) and that they worked to make it very balanced (removing as many bottlenecks as they could), fans run with it. MS gone in defense mode and had Albert Penello saying:

"I’m not dismissing raw performance. I’m stating – as I have stated from the beginning – that the performance delta between the two platforms is not as great as the raw numbers lead the average consumer to believe," Penello wrote on NeoGAF. "There are things about our system architecture not fully understood, and there are things about theirs as well, that bring the two systems into balance."

"People DO understand that Microsoft has some of the smartest graphics programmers IN THE WORLD. We CREATED DirectX, the standard API’s that everyone programs against. So while people laude Sony for their [hardware] skills, do you really think we don’t know how to build a system optimized for maximizing graphics for programmers? Seriously? There is no way we’re giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony. And ANYONE who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference – it would be obvious."

So if don't try to rewrite the story you'll see that the company that have been talking about power and how the competitor compared was MS with they not being behind in X1, with X1X being the most powerful ever, and now with XSX it is the most powerful ever again then got changed to most powerful xbox ever. Sony didn't gave a fuck to Xbox or mentioning them, fans did.

And to compliment on launch the games were considerably performing better on PS4 instead of X1 so no one needed to find excuses (although we got articles saying the resolution difference didn't matter and that fps was the deal). This time the problem is that while everyone was expecting Xbox to outperform PS5 considerably (with the likes of Tom from Verge and Colt Eastwood thinking it could even reach 40-50% advantage and Albert Penello - yes again - saying that even Series S would end up outperforming PS5 because PS5 wouldn't be able to keep framerate) the games told a different story so we got excuses and complains.

On your point about power not being much relevant, yes most of us agree, but on your price deciding the outcome so will Series S outsell PS5?

Don, i personally don't care as much as you do when it comes to face off threads and neogaf etc, i know their are Xbox fanboys gloating, but there are also PS fanboys gloating too. You like to act when one side does it and tend to defend or ignore the other side doing it. I game mainly on PC now and i wont be buying a XSX or PS5 anytime soon, so whatever the fanboys want to claim they will claim. Does it affect me? not one bit, but lets not pretend this is all Xbox's doing. Sony were gloating about power before Xbox was even in the industry, and they will continue to brag about power when they know they have the tech advantages. Fans will be fans. I just wanted to point out your statement on calling out Xbox fans when clearly the community swap and change all the time with the narrative.

Did you forget that most of the Xbox community shuffled over to the PS4 last gen? Those 360 fanboys that bashed the PS3 are now PS4 fanboys bashing the XB1. You have to look at the reality Don.

You really need to improve your reading skills Azz. Have I said Sony fans don't gloat? I even said Xbox fans on neogaf were complaining exactly of Sony fans gloating, did that gone over your head?

At least this time you didn't confuse fans gloating about power with the company. But thank you to ask me to look at reality, it would do you wonders.

Don, the fact that you take what these companies say to heart is the bigger problem. Xbox marketing is no different to PS marketing. They continue to out do each other. The fact i always see you in a Phil Spencer articles bickering on his PR acting like his some sort of religious cult leader while on the other hand, everything  Sony do is gospel. I am not going to get into the "He said, she said" debate with you because i honestly don't care what Xbox or Sony say to market there consoles. Sometimes companies will retaliate, lets not forget the digs Sony took with the XB1 to promote some of there responses. It takes two Don.

We are not nearly far enough in the gen to make any meaningfull comparison between real life performance between series X and PS5. There is more to both device than their ability to render flops. When multiplatgames are made specifically for both might be a good comparison. Also the series X exclusives could be held back by the series S in the long run. Everything on the series X also needs to run on the series S. Which could also be a factor why the real life gap will not be as big as the paper might suggest. Or perhaps the difference will become bigger the further we head into this gen. We simply don't know what the future will hold and whether or not its relevant. Diminishing returns are also a thing we need to consider. I can barely noticed the graphics difference in demon Souls between RES and performance. But having 60fps is pretty sweet.