Xbox One price and release date both blow up in Microsoft’s face

　　E3 should have been a coronation for the Xbox One. Microsoft got its new gaming console unveiled before Sony, with well received specs, great looking games, and a new set of internet living room features might even work this time. The only two pieces missing from the Xbox One puzzle were its price and release date, both of which were expected to be formalities. The $499 price being thrown around by those in the know sounded high, but no higher than anyone was expecting from the competition. And as long as it shipped before the holidays, the precise date didn’t matter. But then E3 came and bombs started dropping on Microsoft’s head.
　　Microsoft confidently unveiled the price tag of the Xbox One at the E3 gaming conference this week, $499 just as expected, but Sony announced that its PlayStation 4 would cost only $399. Boom. Then Microsoft said that it expects the Xbox One release date to be November. No one in the tech industry ever hits release dates on time when they’re still this far out. Especially Microsoft. So now there’s the good chance that the new Xbox will hit the market too late into the holiday season to have a full impact, or arrive with too little available inventory, or miss the holiday season entirely. Boom again. And that’s before the ongoing tick-tick-tick of Microsoft’s unpopular built-in DRM for Xbox One gaming discs got blown up by Sony’s revelation that PS4 games will be free of DRM entirely.
　　Now the Xbox One launch at E3 has shifted from a coronation to a condemnation. Gamers have stopped talking about how cool the new Xbox One games look, or caring about the feature set. Instead they’re whining about how the price is too high, game ownership is too restricted, and wondering if they should buy a PS4 instead because the new Xbox may not arrive this year anyway. Microsoft has a good deal of time to turn around the narrative, but suddenly it’s playing from behind.