While I'm happy that Microsoft's reversal benefits a good amount of my friends both in the States and elsewhere in the world. I'm pretty salty about losing some of the features I was looking forward to as a result. Effectively MS has removed the "Yeah, but..." from my ability to defend the Xbox One against PS4 to people. The cool features that were pretty forward-thinking but necessitated the restrictions they had in place are now gone unless I go all digital (which I plan to now) and even then I still lost some things.
I always thought it was shitty that MS was excluding folks serving in the armed forces of the world (not just the US obviously) as well as those that simply weren't on the release list. That was a terrible way of doing things. The sheer amount of backpedal action here, though, just screams overkill. We now have what amounts to a more powerful Xbox 360. That's fine for people that want more of the same, but not everybody does. It's now too easy to say that the only thing MS has going for it are the exclusives and that is the most subjective thing about gaming today. I do not like what Sony had to show. I just don't. A lot of my friends thought MS didn't show anything worth having.
So what it comes down to is the price factor for a lot of people and MS being stubborn and wanting to ensure every console has a Kinect in the hope that developers actually do something with the damn thing is jacking it all up. Does Killer Instinct make a $100 price difference worth it to me? Yup. Will it to everyone else? Hell no. So now we're left with people arguing over which console has the better games (hint: the only person who gives a shit about your opinion on this is YOU) and bickering over specs. PS4 has the edge in power.
Whether multiplatform games look much better, or better at all, on PS4 depends on if they want to spend development time optimizing. Third party games will likely end up looking just like they do this generation, with people relying on Digital Foundry articles to tell the difference. First party games may end up looking great on PS4 and noticeably better than Xbox One exclusives. To be fair, that's how it was already. The Last of Us looks noticeably better than something like Gears of War Judgment or Halo 4, but that's not exactly driving system sales and it hasn't this whole current generation.
At the end of the day, buy the console that has the games you want. Loosening the DRM stuff (the Kinect is still there but it can be paused/disabled, if not unplugged, and you can dictate what it can and can't send out to the Big-Brother-watched ether) has again put this next generation back to the way it's really always been. That much I like. But I am sad that instead of getting shiny new abilities I'm being saddled with much the same experience I already have...it's just prettier.
P.S. I'm only posting because I was tagged and had shit on my mind. Gonna unfollow the thread again because some of the posts in here make me want to invent time travel to prevent births.