Why was Jason saying these consoles were "extremely close" when apparently he didn't actually know? Weird.
presumably he was reporting what he'd heard. Don't forget that companies can and have made reactive development decisions in the wake of competitor announcements - including upgrades but also financial decisions- if a spec was too expensive to chase or match they could leave that alone and shift budget or effort to a differentiator- Wii for example using control method as its selling point vs graphics performance. Jason may have been accurate until things changed. Happens all the time.
In this case the combination of e3 and gdc flux meant nobody could enact their normal planning cadence- and Sony or others may have had to adjust planning to accommodate that flux. This may be a hybrid of gdc and other work. As a player and enthusiast it may be dry but I appreciate the insight.
I have zero insight into their business- but Sony being based in Japan, marketing globally, manufacturing in Japan, Korea and in China and building their next gen from a different place in the market and technology means you shouldn't expect either a copy of the Series X or a clone of the PS4 plan or approach.
the SSD stuff is an example of both companies thinking about how to
use all that horsepower beyond flinging pixels at players — and on both systems that will provide unexpected and unpredictable benefits - but both companies have had traditionally very different ecosystems and OS features where that infrastructure will be as important as the underlying tech.
and that's without considering price, play patterns and developer output.
