As we slowly wind the summer months down and look forward to the holiday season, gamers across the country are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next generation of gaming consoles. Let's take a look at the two behemoths of the gaming community: the Xbox One and the PS4.

The Xbox One is set to retail for $499, with a controller and the Kinect included. It initially included a DRM policy that would have required 24/7 connectivity to the internet. After widespread backlash in the gaming community, the folks at Microsoft pulled a 180 and backpedaled from that policy, though not everyone was too thrilled about it. 

"A new wave of gaming where you could buy games digitally, then trade, share or sell those digital licenses. Essentially, it was Steam for Xbox. But consumers were uninformed, and railed against it, and it was taken away because Sony took advantage of consumers [sic] uncertainty," reads a petition on Change.org.

Clearly, Microsoft re-instituting their DRM policy would be disastrous from a public relations perspective. It will be interesting to see whether the early antipathy they suffered at the hands of that policy will translate into poor sales when the Xbox One debuts Nov. 27.

As for the brass at Sony, they must be positively elated with how the unveiling of the PS4 has gone so far. The price point of $399 for their next gen console is considerably lower than the offering for the Xbox One, and that has certainly led to a fair amount of excitement over the PS4.

Sony has also done a good job of introducing excitement via the products and accessories they promise to bring along with the console. At the 2013 Gamescom this week they have already shown a sneak preview of a still-untitled game from the developers at Naughty Dog, and now they are introducing a partnership with Twitch to allow for easy online broadcasting of a gamer's play.

"PlayStation has a long history of delivering some of the best gaming experiences in the industry and we're excited to have Twitch available on a console as heavily anticipated as PS4," Emmett Shear, Twitch CEO, said in a statement. "Through this partnership we are paving the way for every PS4 gamer to become both a broadcaster and an avid spectator of amazing content."

Sony has also announced that it will be releasing the PS4 Nov. 15th in North America and the 29th in Europe. Only time will tell which of the two consoles will win in a popularity contest among gamers, but the early advantage certainly seems to belong the folks at Sony.