They also thoroughly reviewed the PS4, and the review was also pretty mixed. Overall, I'm not tempted to buy either device (10+s to wake from sleep seems infuriating; my AppleTV takes about that long and it drives me bonkers).
My take on the next gen consoles is that it's not clear there will be any winners. The current generation hasn't actually been profitable for either Microsoft or Sony, and the economics of the industry have, if anything, gotten worse. (Sure, the market is bigger, but if you're selling the platform at a loss hoping to profit on licensing then you need the cost per game to remain steady or go up.)
And there's the other shoe: iOS / Android / Steam / Linux. E.g. if Apple were to release an iOS console (i.e. AppleTV on steroids) sometime in the next two years they could leave Microsoft and Sony to eat their loss leaders and take a huge chunk of the market away. (In general, Apple's 30% cut of games is smaller than what the games companies pay to retailers and platform licensees, and Apple could always lower it if necessary.)
Overall I think it's kind of a nightmare scenario:
1) Long wait since previous generation, so expectations are sky-high.
2) Each platform has been hit by at least one scandal -- PS4's bricking, Xbox One pricing model backdown followed by 720p launch titles (WTF?!)
3) Neither platform offering elegant out-of-box solutions despite numerous complaints with the previous generation (seriously, every time I launch my PS3 it needs to patch, and the same problem is in the PS4 and Xbox One).
4) Underwhelming launch titles.
Sony and Microsoft think they can ship a half-baked product and fix it over the next year or two, just like it "worked" for the previous generation (that pretty much lost them both money).
Agreed - I have a launch PS4, but I've been underwhelmed by the game selection. I cancelled my Xbox One preorder a couple of weeks back over the same concerns. I think the Wii U has a much more entertaining selection than both at this point.
My take on the next gen consoles is that it's not clear there will be any winners. The current generation hasn't actually been profitable for either Microsoft or Sony, and the economics of the industry have, if anything, gotten worse. (Sure, the market is bigger, but if you're selling the platform at a loss hoping to profit on licensing then you need the cost per game to remain steady or go up.)
And there's the other shoe: iOS / Android / Steam / Linux. E.g. if Apple were to release an iOS console (i.e. AppleTV on steroids) sometime in the next two years they could leave Microsoft and Sony to eat their loss leaders and take a huge chunk of the market away. (In general, Apple's 30% cut of games is smaller than what the games companies pay to retailers and platform licensees, and Apple could always lower it if necessary.)
Overall I think it's kind of a nightmare scenario:
1) Long wait since previous generation, so expectations are sky-high.
2) Each platform has been hit by at least one scandal -- PS4's bricking, Xbox One pricing model backdown followed by 720p launch titles (WTF?!)
3) Neither platform offering elegant out-of-box solutions despite numerous complaints with the previous generation (seriously, every time I launch my PS3 it needs to patch, and the same problem is in the PS4 and Xbox One).
4) Underwhelming launch titles.
Sony and Microsoft think they can ship a half-baked product and fix it over the next year or two, just like it "worked" for the previous generation (that pretty much lost them both money).