From a hardware standpoint, Xbox One is shaping up to be weaker than PlayStation 4, with slower memory and three operating systems that eat up a large part of the console's 8GB of RAM. But Microsoft doesn't believe it's outgunned. In fact, it claims that Xbox One can become massively more powerful due to the power of the cloud.

"We're provisioning for developers for every physical Xbox One we build, we're provisioning the CPU and storage equivalent of three Xbox Ones on the cloud," Jeff Henshaw told OXM. "We're doing that flat out so that any game developer can assume that there's roughly three times the resources immediately available to their game, so they can build bigger, persistent levels that are more inclusive for players. They can do that out of the gate."

Read more: Why those claims don't hold true »

Console gamers will be able to wave their hands in front of the next-generation Kinect when Xbox One launches later this year. However, PC users will have to wait a bit longer to play around with Microsoft's newly updated 3D camera tech. The next-gen Kinect for Windows will be available in 2014, Microsoft has confirmed.

Read more: PC version may be slightly different »