 Good morning, I'm Kristen Filetti and welcome to Newsdesk on SiliconANGLE TV for Tuesday, June 11, 2013. Yesterday at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, Microsoft and Sony made important announcements regarding their gaming consoles for the next generation. Join us now to provide a side-by-side comparison of how these new consoles will stack up against one another. Is SiliconANGLE web producer Mark Zamora? Good morning, Mark. Hi, Tia. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Earlier this year, we got a preview of the Xbox One console, however, until yesterday, Sony had kept details about their console a secret, only choosing to provide a preliminary look at their controller. So Mark, now that we have both consoles and they've officially stepped into the spotlight, what are your impressions about the look and the feel of each of these consoles and their controllers? So yeah, E3 Week is finally here. Big week of gaming. First off, the Xbox One. Well, actually, both consoles look really, really similar. There's a joke going on the internet. We have bold and we have italics. So the Xbox One, big box. It looks kind of like your grandma's VCR in form factor and the PlayStation 4 looks almost exactly the same except with a little bit of a slant to it. It's kind of interesting how both consoles decided to go with this angular design, especially when compared to the Wii U, it's a little round, little box. But both of them look really, really solid. They do seem really, really big, not in person or compared to the current consoles, but they're actually a decent size. They just look bulky. So it's going to be interesting to see how that looks in the entertainments that are once you get it installed. And we also have the controls basically taking like we've seen before. The Xbox controller is just a better version of the Xbox 360 controller. Same thing with the PlayStation 3, I'm sorry, the PlayStation 4 controller. They took everything that was good about their controller and made it better. So both look really comfortable. So I'm overall really, really pleased about how they look and how they feel. It's just about games at this point. Well, Mark, we know you're a big gamer. So how do you feel about the showings from both Microsoft and Sony? Are you impressed? Are you disappointed? It's still kind of, you know, it's E3. You always get really, really hyped up about it. And nobody will ever be able to meet your expectations. But I know with Microsoft's conference, they focused just on games. And that was in a way it was smart and in a way it wasn't. I know they have a lot of questions that people wanted answers to concerning their DRM, you know, all that the connect nonsense that they've been dealing with for the past few months. But they focused just on the games and there were some good ones in there. You know, some really, really interesting ones. Of course, they saved all the good ones for the end. Sony, I think, had more. Well, they had better quality titles spaced out through the throughout the entire conference. So I think their showing was a little stronger. But overall, as a gamer, I'm really pleased. I think we have a lot of cool stuff in the works from very cool developers and a lot of smaller developers getting some love this generation, which I think is really, really great because those smaller developers are what, you know, they're going to be the big developers of the future. So overall, I think, you know, kind of in the middle, but leaning towards pleased. OK, well, Mark, earlier, you brought up the fact that during the Xbox reveal that happened earlier this year, Microsoft chose to focus a lot on the Xbox One as sort of media device. What other details about that functionality have been revealed since that initial reveal? And and how was Sony responding to that media concept? So again, it was kind of interesting. Xbox decided to spend their entire E3 presentation just on games this time because they received a lot of flack last time for covering so much of the home media aspect. So this time they were just like, you know what, it's all about the games. And that's all we're showing. And I think that kind of tells me that they've revealed everything that they want to reveal at this point about having your Xbox as a DVR or, you know, a Netflix machine. But Sony, on the other hand, took a totally different approach to their E3 press conference. And I'm actually really happy that they did it. The entire thing because, you know, Sony revealed their console first. Their entire E3 conference was just a, hey, we're catching up to you now. You remember when you announced that your console was a home media device? Well, guess what? Ours does all of that, too. That's not really a big deal. The games, of course, they had a solid, solid showing of games. And they even directly commented on a lot of the decisions Microsoft has made with the Xbox, basically saying, you know, we're better than you and we are the kings of this generation and you're not. And it's going to be literally a console war has enraged and the Internet is going crazy about it. So do you think coming out second was to their advantage in this case? Oh, I think so. I think it's good that they they, you know, because everybody was, like I said, I was expecting the Xbox to address, you know, give us more details about what their DRM is, what the connect is going to do, how all of it works together. Why do you have to be connected once every 24 hours? And they didn't. They totally just left us in the dark and they said, hey, just here's a bunch of games, forget all that. And Sony was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. After a long day of E3 press conferences, we had Microsoft. We had Ubisoft, we had EA. And at the end of the day, Sony was just like, hey, Microsoft, we're coming for you. Prepare yourself. So let's talk about Microsoft for a second. They've been under a lot of criticism lately regarding their always online and game sharing policies, as well as their lack of backwards compatibility. And this is an issue that we've discussed in detail on our program here. So what did Sony have to say about all that? They basically took it was it was a really funny moment because they showed off all these great games and then he came on stage and he was like, here's our policy on game trading. You can do it. And the crowd went crazy and he's like, here's our policy on DRM. There is none. And he was literally taking all the points that Microsoft honestly screwed up and saying, we're doing it better. So, you know, he was saying you own your games and they even released a funny video. It's like it's titled something like step by step instructions of how to how to share games on the PlayStation 4. And it has this long intro and then the guy just goes, here you go. And the other guy is, thank you. And then that's it because it's literally that simple. You can still rent games. You can still trade games. You are still free when tied to the PlayStation 4 ecosystem. And they made it very clear that on that point. This is so really, you know, sort of fighting words from Sony. Do you think that Microsoft is going to respond by making any changes? That's a very good question. You know, they've been dancing around the subject ever since, you know, it first leaked. Will they make any changes? I really, really, really doubt it. They should because honestly, I've seen so many of my fellow gamers just say, you know what, I'm actually considering a PlayStation now. I used to be a big Xbox fanboy and I'm actually thinking about making the switch. So I think it'll it'll it would do them good to do it. But I really I think they're pretty set in their ways for some reason. Who knows why? In terms of specs and features of the consoles, is there any console that offers a certain functionality or feature that the other does not, one that appeals more than the other to you? I think it's cool that the Xbox One can be used as a DVR. It does have that HDMI in, which is very unique for a game console. That being said, I think the PlayStation 4 is a much better package. You know, it has the Blu-ray player. You can play, you know, all your games, you're free. Really, when it comes to the next gen, that's what concerns me. Are there good games? Yes. Sony's been really making strides to make better, better titles. And so I think that's where I'm leaning and also the whole freedom thing. Like I'm an Xbox 360 gamer now, but once they started revealing the details of how their DRM works, I was really turned away from Xbox. It's really that stuff that's that's selling me at this point. Now that we have this information about these new consoles, when can we expect to see their releases? And what are we talking in terms of price point? So this is another thing, actually, again, Microsoft presented first. They said our console is coming in November and it's going to cost, I believe it was, I want to say it was four hundred and ninety nine dollars. And Sony said our console is coming out holiday season as well, but it's going to be one hundred dollars cheaper than the Xbox. So that's another thing that drove everybody really, really crazy. Well, Mark, it looks like that's our time for this morning. But thank you so much for joining us. Great chatting with you. Sure thing. And coming up here on Newsdesk, tablet ownership is on the rise and an Apple design award winner is named. But first, SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier checks in to chat software defined storage and a brand new announcement in the space from NetApp.