Sony played their hand better.
Microsoft's response after the crowd's discontent was rediculous in my opinion. They pretty much took the Apple snobbery approach and said that we the consumer would like it and buy it anyway. "No. This is what you really want, you just dont know that." (I'm an Apple fan, but not part of their Borg army, btw.)
Perhaps MS was going for a situation like this... Give a release conference that makes the customers unhappy, then go back on those bad features, and say that you listen to your customers and will try to give them what they want ...
We'll see though. There is still a good amount of time between now and release.