Typical Penello stuff aside, there was nothing impressive about Sony's initial PS4 conference. It was basically consisting of a tech demo and controller/PS Eye reveal, they didn't show the console until later.
To this day I don't get why people had a problem with Sony not showing the console.
I remember one video after the reveal, I think it was a recap by Matt Lees, said "Don't worry, its just gonna be a black box." And thats basically it.
Was this relevant information to have 9 months prior to release?
I think Sony had an excellent plan, they had the right focus and a brillant marketing campaign.
They knew their market, they knew what their market wanted and they knew how to approach the market.
Microsoft on the other hand bet on the wrong horse, thinking you could get people excited with media capabilties and this day and age was a huge mistake.
They were after the wrong market, therefore had the wrong focus and the wrong marketing.
And now they lost two markets where they were the leader last gen and in the rest of the world they're pretty much irrelevant.