Well the PS4 pulled ahead early on but sales were disrupted due to Microsoft unbundling Kinect and also creating an attractive holiday bundle at $150 less than launch price.
The PlayStation without a doubt has more mind share on a global scale and in the US today. There is plenty of evidence with the US market that a number of Xbox 360 users have chosen the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system as their primary console this generation and that will translate into sales among friends when they come to choose a console and want to play online with each other through the unified PlayStation Network system.
We already know that PlayStation is pushing to market their exclusive titles and exclusive content with publishing partners and this is having an effect on software sell through ratios between PlayStation and Xbox. Even games that are being marketed on Xbox have better sales on PlayStation.
Sony can easily control the price of their system as demonstrated in the UK market and in the US historically. Especially as they haven't moved on their launch price and are already making a profit on the console itself. Therefore they should be able to do what they did with the PS1 and PS2 which is match the price of their competitors and perhaps even sacrifice margin in order to gain a stronghold over their competition.
I actually think that Morpheus won't sell many new consoles. But I do think it will build hype leading up to the release and through 2016. As will other PlayStation services such as PlayStation Plus, PlayStation Vue, PlayStation Now, PlayStation Remote Play and others services such as Spotify.
Sony has a much better chance to capture more gamers this gen as well as a more semi casual / casual audience through the future game announcements that it has planned. I envision this gen being similar to PS1 and N64 where N64 easily matched PS1 sales early on but ultimately lagged behind in to second place as the gen went on. The Xbox brand isn't as strong as it was and the majority of people who have bought the console so far are core gamers who owned the 360, secondly the number of games being released on the Xbox One are less than that of the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 has many more compelling reasons for a gamer to purchase the console than the Xbox One has.
There wasn't that much of a "delay" until the holidays so not sure what your point with that is.
1. You don't know how much that is. There's also evidence that there are "MANY" especially in the US, 360 owners who have not moved on even after all this time.
2. Not that many examples of this, and this is implying MS isn't pushing anything. and is just sitting there.
3. This is assuming that MS will just sit there and do nothing, and also requires a crystal ball to predict what price they will be at, that there will be no reaction, or there will be a large reaction , and in the case of matching prices, most of that reaction only to the PS4.
4. You think Morpheus is going to have building hype BEFORE we are near it's release? The same Morpheous which didn't really have much of a mainstream reaction before? Well you do agree it won't move that many systems at least. Unless they cut that price further down then they probably will.
5. We do not have any info enough for Xbox "brand strength" at the moment. Hasn't even been 2 years yet,. I also like how you have a magic crystal ball that tells you that the majority of Xbox One users are core gamers, because the evidence you have for that is....
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Also compelling game sis subjective.
But again, imo I believe it could go either way.