Sony and Microsoft do battle in a console war for the ages

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...s-Xbox-One.jpgHas there ever been a more dramatic twelve months in the games business? Yes, we’ve watched as microtransactions invaded console games, Nintendo’s problems mounted, VR returned, alt consoles emerged to challenge the status quo and online communities became ever more powerful, but it is the battle between Sony and Microsoft that was the most thrilling and controversial tale of this year – and perhaps any other in the medium’s history.It had everything. And appropriately for this time of year, Microsoft spent much of 2013 playing the pantomime villain. A couple of stories from our well-placed sources set the scene: on February 1, we revealed what we knew about PlayStation 4 before anything had been announced or confirmed, and a few days later, we did the same with what was then known as the next Xbox. What we’d learned of PS4 at that point suggested that it was a smart, if hardly revolutionary, next step for Sony, a powerful games console with a more open, social feel. Meanwhile Microsoft’s next console would block second-hand games, require an internet connection and would ship with Kinect, whether you wanted it or not. It wasn’t as powerful as PS4 nor as developer-friendly. Not a great start for Microsoft, then, and the battle for hearts and minds hadn’t even officially begun.At the PS4 reveal event on February 20, it got worse for Microsoft purely because Sony got so much right. At PlayStation Meeting, Sony’s rhetoric somehow struck a balance between humility and hyperbole, the platform holder pitching PS4 as a console built with developers and players in mind – quite a reversal from its approach with PS3. Perhaps aware of Microsoft’s well-known desire to make its next Xbox the centrepiece of the living room (and with the understanding that it had enough money to buy the exclusives and marketing to do so) Sony knew it had to gain industry and hardcore support at launch or PS4 was doomed. It succeeded.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/...-for-the-ages/