Microsoft certainly has the horses in the stable to have said amazing year. Halo 3, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, even Crackdown.....
The only problem is, while those are all going to be amazing games, they aren't going to do for Microsoft what Nintendo has going for them: bigtime, mainstream mojo. The Wii is already a cultural phenomenon. If you don't like it, too bad: sometimes the things that become entrenched aren't things you like (disco, rap music, myspace, to name a few general examples).
I find it surprising that some of us still have a hard time understanding why Sony would be "the butt of jokes." First, everyone loves to take shots at #1. Second, everybody loves an underdog. Third, when that #1 that people are already kind of leery towards (because it is human nature to be a bit tired of a dominant competitor in anything; hence why people were happy that Patriots lost this year and happy the Colts won) starts to behave badly (terrible E3, super high price point, delays, extreme shortages, all while making extremely arrogant comments to the press), it makes it kinda obvious, doesn't it?
Truth is, the Critic is interesting because he isn't afraid to take firm opinions. It would be boring if he had no biases at all. If you want something else, go to IGN where the Sony people play only Playstation (mostly), and the Nintendo people play Nintendo stuff (mostly).
-Rob