I understand you're still spinning your wheels trying desperately to find some way to excuse your company of choice's behavior, but literally every single point of yours in this post is nonsense. Every single one. Usually a single point may be wrong, or someone is just misguided here and there. For you? Every single point is absurd.
Where to even fucking begin. Christ. I'll have to number your "points" because they're each more entertaining than the last and I think they all deserve
special attention.
1. As has been said, a "smart" company plays to their strengths, not their weaknesses. Sony has won the power war. It's not up for dispute. And they won it at a $100 cheaper price (no one cares about Kinect until they justify it with actual compelling games; quaint conveniences != +$100, and you can control PS4's UI with your voice using the included headset). Every developer who has gone on record has said the PS4 is easier to develop for, has significantly more power, has way more mature tools.
Microsoft's STRENGTHS when they were designing their "all-in-one-entertainment" device was a system designed around multimedia capabilities and Kinect. That they seem so woefully unprepared to even have a compelling argument to support Kinect until next year (first flagship is coming Spring 2014) is a problem that should never have happened. A company in their position would have recognized their core goals, utilized those strengths to put distance between them and the competition and settled on a path that took them
away from revealing just how inferior their system tech was. Instead, they attempted to face the problem head on by posting many articles trying to diminish the PS4's power whilst trying to exaggerate the benefits of XBO's. I'll cover this more in another point, since you actually believe Microsoft misled nobody.
2. Technically, if Microsoft would have released a system exactly as powerful as the Wii U it would have been the "most powerful console they have ever made." This is the most ridiculous non-statement ever in history. It says literally less than nothing about the system you're trying to defend. Try harder so I can be better entertained.
3. "Next-gen" does not only mean power. They could market their machine as a true next-gen machine without wading into territory they're only going to lose at (as they have endlessly since they revealed the XBO, whether your desperate fanaticism allows you to admit it or not).
4. So far, if GAF was in charge of their marketing and planning we would have saved them from a.) their embarrassing original XBO vision and the 180s after b.) their attempts to try to enter a PS4 tech war, which has led to yet more embarrassing news for them c.) resolutiongate, since we would have told Microsoft to get out ahead of it ages ago. And before you say 'b-b-but GAF hardcore blah blah fucking blah', please realize that the reason Microsoft changed was because they had abysmal pre-order numbers while Sony's were skyrocketing. Please understand that it remains the case that Sony is dominating in pre-order numbers, launch allotment,
consumer interest,
online auctions and much more purely BECAUSE of their horrible decisions that much of GAF would have helped them avoid. And don't even get me started in Europe. XBO is getting fucking thrashed in early indications.
But please, go on. Bubbles are cool. Live in your bubble bro.
5. You don't need to be a pixel counter to notice the difference between 720p and 1080p. You need to simply not be blind. That said, the point is not 'pixel counting.' The point is a real world illustration of the massive gulf in power. And, it must be said, the resolution was only part of the differences... in Battlefield 4, plenty of other features are different as well, all of them advantage PS4. So not only is it outputting a massive resolution gap, but it's doing it at a more consistent framerate and with more impressive effects overall. There is absolutely no way to underplay it without being obscene.
6. As has been said a million times,
word-of-mouth is the #1 thing that sells people on gaming products. Word-of-mouth
always starts within the hardcore gaming fans and spreads out to their family and other casuals. If Hardcore gamers begin to lament at mass that the PS4 gaming experience is simply superior on a technical level, that is going to leak out - even if those people couldn't themselves tell the difference. They will remember that their friends said it was 'worse' for one reason or another, and they will look at the sticker price, and they'll put two and two together. it doesn't take rocket science. Once again, PS4 is absolutely dominating in the word-of-mouth game. That's why it is important for Microsoft to tailor their message so as not to try to deceive or focus on their weaknesses for their primary message deliverers. We are the ones who spread out and inform.
7. I am not important to MS; millions upon millions of gamers, however, are. We spend the most average money on their products, we raise the biggest stink, we are the ones who made them even moderately successful in the first place. Without our blessing, things are simply that much harder for Microsoft. Without our approval, we go out and tell those who aren't tuned in that it's not worth it. Now it's true it's possible to do it without us, but you're increasing the odds of failure exponentially and for no reason. Since they have an alternative message that is viable and plays to their
actual strengths.
8. No, they only intentionally tried to deceive hardcore gamers as to what those specs could actually do and what PS4's specs could actually do so that people who are actually ignorant about technology could be fooled into thinking the gap was tiny or insignificant. It was a lie, everyone knows it was a lie, and even Leadbetter has now had to come out and damage control for letting Microsoft's architect folks pretty much post articles filled with FUD. To deny this is simply to deny facts. Up to you.
