@jimmy
I did not buy into a console last gen, and will not buy one this gen either... heck, I would have to buy an HDTV to go with it. Money better thrown at my computer.
But, if I were to buy a console today then it would hands down be the X1. Here are a few reasons:
1) Sony is a hardware company. They make hardware and sell it. Microsoft is a software company at heart. They are accustomed to iterative design and release. The last consoles showed this plainly enough, and I think we will see more of the same this time with Sony releasing a product that remains largely the same, and MS sells a product that gets significantly better over time.
2) While the kids may not care or remember, there are quite a few parents who remember needing to get credit card information changed when Sony got hacked... twice. I am sure that Sony has beefed up security since then, but I think that there were a lot of parents who are thinking twice this time around. And no matter what the kids want, it is the parents who buy the consoles.
3) Games. Sony built a much more hardcore game box, but the games getting the good reviews are indie games, which don't sell consoles. MS built a much slower box, in a much larger case, with an external PSU, with tons of ventilation, that is designed around much broader use (skype and TV), and yet managed to have better day 1 games, and seems to have a smaller but better quality lineup over the next year. Why the entertainment box has games and the game box doesn't is beyond me, but this is a big win for MS who has never really had good opening lineups on any of their products.
4) More than just games. MS has better voice commands, gimmicky gestures which will hopefully get better with time, TV/Cable 'integration' (aka overlay) options, and a whole host of DVD/BluRay/network media playback in addition to the now standard streaming options. Sony has many of these same options, but did not pull them off nearly as well.
5) Sony, as a larger company, is not doing particularly well, and has not been doing well for a long time. Not saying that they won't recover, but the failure of many of their divisions has a definate toll on their gaming department because a lot of their funding goes to bail out others. MS on the other had turns even most of their 'failures' into profits (except for the Surface RT). Win8 was hearalded as a failure, but it makes money. WP is considered a failure, but it makes money... and provides Android patent leases which makes lots more money. Office 365 pricing is not exactly popular, but it is raking in money. While there are rumors of MS selling off Xbox, the fact of the matter is that they don't need to. Xbox is not a huge money pit anymore, and while it has not yet hit a total break-even yet, the losses at the beginning have been long discounted, and they not make tons of money every year which would be difficult to say goodbye to.
6) The real reason MS is doing so well is not my reason, but it is by far the biggest reason; You can walk into a store and buy an Xbox 1, while the PS4 is sold out. Parents buy the large majority of consoles, and they don't care about console wars or what their kid's friends play. They want to get their kid something shiny for Christmas, even if it is not exactly what the kid wants. If a kid wants a PS4, but x1 is all that is available, then that kid is going to end up with an x1.
The funny thing is that I am not sure why the X1 has so much more availability. Both are running AMD chips made on the same process node, so chip production should be roughly even. Maybe it is that DDR3 is easier to come by than GDDR5? Maybe it is because the x1 is essentially a big heat-sink, so they can tolerate more thermal variance than Sony and their much smaller box? Maybe MS simply finalized design earlier and had more time to produce them? Who knows?!
What we do know is that an early lead with a much more global audience is going to make for some great bargaining power to get more exclusives, and that is a big deal at the beginning.
For all of the PR flubs, it looks like MS has done something right.
/www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-12-02-ps4-fastest-selling-console-in-uk-history
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