Indeed, some of their announcements are made way too early.

They had to have some big things announced early. Anyway, I still get great concept, and I am in general more excited about what Sony are doing with the console

If thats what helps you sleep it night, go on believing it. Microsoft isn't the type of company whom you can say something too close to. As soon as they know your plans, they'll destroy them.

Thats what Tim says. Since you confirmed it I must agree. I think they also know where to pick the battles, I don't see them trying to come up with an uber hardcore version of GooW or MGS4 as the markets for those games are limited.

I agree with the thread title. Even though MS has announced games a bit too early in the past (Alan Wake), they've done really well in recent times (Halo 3, Halo Wars, Gears 2 etc). Over time they've gone closer and closer to Nintendo's Strategy, not caving into fanboy and hater demands.

They should come up with the goods at E3. They are the first of the 3 to give their presentation (I think they are?), so they'll use it to try and knock the other two out immediately. I mean, look at last year, that FF13 announcement was all anyone could talk about (Not that Nintendo tried anything to rectify that btw).

If I were Sony, I'd only talk about games really in advance that I knew for a fact MS had very little to no chance of outdoing (e.g God of War).

As soon as they know your plans, they'll destroy them..by writing a cheque.

You act like MS wouldn't have known about this stuff had Sony not announced it.

Recall that MS announced the release of the 40gb ps3 four months before Sony said a single word to the public.

These companies are smart. They always have a good handle on what their opponents are doing behind the scenes.

Microsoft is not by any means fast.  Compare them to Google or Apple.  If Microsoft is faster than Sony that says a lot more about Sony than it says about Microsoft.

Sony has bigger first and second party than Nintendo and MS combined, they have to announce some stuff earlier. Do you people really think they showed all of their "card" pre E3? I know of some games that have not yet been shown to public and will be at E3 100%. Boy will you be surprised....

I agree on certain fronts. Sony does announce things far too early sometimes. Yet It does help with some things. When you announce things early(such as Home) you get feedback faster. This allows you to assess whether the audience is even all that interested in what you have. If they aren't, then what can you do to fix that? From their corrections/fixes can be made, that normally would not have been possible if you waited too late. That is the sort of thing that causes RROD/EJ4 issues(no offense).

Although it does work against them on others. Companies have plenty of time to retaliate against Sony's big guns, not a good thing at all. Yet I think Sony is a tad more aware of this of late.