The announcement of the Sony PlayStation 4 has apparently caused a lot of ruckus at Microsoft, forcing the company to make plans for the unveiling of the next generation Xbox in April of this year.

Many industry pundits and Microsoft, were expecting Sony to reveal the PlayStation 4 at E3 2013, however, the Japanese giant chose to surprise everyone by announcing the console on February 20, catching everyone by surprise. Now that Sony has shown its hand, Microsoft seems eager to step up to the plate with an announcement of its own before E3 comes along in June, according to CVG.

To make this rumor appear more real, the boys over at NeoGAF found information about a domain named called XboxEvent.com that was registered by one of Microsoft partners, Eventcore. This company only tends to register new domains when it is planning an event, so it seems Microsoft is truly ready to hit back at Sony before E3.

Not too long after Sony's announcement of the PlayStation 4 ended, Major Nelson, the Xbox guy, took a shot at Sony when he stated the following on his Twitter feed.

"Announce a console without actually showing a console? That's one approach."

What we have here could be a sign of confidence or lack thereof. Major Nelson has since promised to give his thoughts on the PlayStation 4 announcement by the end of the week, it would be interesting to see what he has to say.

If the announcement of the PS4 truly rattled Microsoft's confidence, then Sony could be doing something right with the platform. Being forced to show your hand before the right time puts the competition in the driving seat, and right now, that seat is occupied by Sony.