I own a couple of each new gen console, have been a vocal critic of MS's brain-dead launch & tone-deaf PR response as well as a vocal cheerleader for Sony doing and saying all the right things. And the PS4 is, as we all know, significantly more powerful when that potential is tapped.
But, with all that said, MS has done a lot right the past few months. People in here are joking about firmware/OS updates as if they don't matter. But, the bottom line is as of right now if I'm being totally objective I much prefer the UI ergonomics of my Xbones (with or without Kinect) vs the PS4. Functionality is also better, one example that's huge for me is thumb drive movie playback has been enabled on Xbone. I view this as a game-changer for a lot of users. When .mkv compatibility and a native PLEX app are added soon my Xbones will fully replace my PS3's as my primary media centers. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but to me these are huge features that are still inexplicably missing from PS4. Beyond this, the PS4 UI's way of organizing games into an "endless horizontal scroll" is already becoming far too unwieldy, even though so far Ive only installed a handful of disc based games along with a myriad of (mostly take em or leave em) PS+ titles.
Sony won the launch without question due to MS's design choices (forced Kinect at the expense of better hardware), anti-consumer DRM stance and the series of baffling PR fuck-ups, all of which will be taught in business schools as how NOT to launch a new product.
But since then its been Microsoft on the offensive, improving their OS (more important than many here will admit), pushing exclusives people want to play (taking nothing away from PS4's future lineup which thankfully will improve as well), and delivering the same high speed, reliable, socially conducive online network that PSN still hasn't matched thus far despite switching to a pay model.
So do I think Pachter is right in his prognostications for September? Probably not. But MS does deserve some credit under Phil for at least trying to make up for Mattrick's group shitting the bed so badly. Yeah MS had to do a series of 180s while PS4 got it mostly right from the start. But, while I do love my PS4s for their potential and at first really only tolerated my Xbones, the tide has turned a bit for now. I'm glad to see it if only because Sony needs the competition to stay actively pro-consumer.