Windows 8 has some nice improvements under the hood, including an updated scheduler that specifically takes advantage of AMD's new bulldozer/jaguar cores for example.
But Windows 8 is still a bloated OS, especially for a console, even if it will be heavily modified for Durango.
My response was actually to:
"And no OS bloat/multitasking." The argument being that you can get more out of a console than a PC of similar specs.
That consoles will be more efficient than PCs will remain true, but that they won't have bloat and multitasking is false.
The question we really don't have answered yet is just how much will these more complex (and resource intensive OS's) affect the performance disparity between consoles and PC's?
Well, its incorrect to say "none". As modern consoles become increasingly PC-like in both their hardware and software architectures being suited for generalized tasks, their performance gap to traditional PC's of similar specs will also diminish.
Additionally its a fallacy to suggest that 8Gb of RAM will always be more than enough or will never be fully utilized. Limited resources are always coveted by developers.
Sony and MS will go out of their way to minimize the footprint of their next-gen OS's, but they will still be more complex than any that have come before. Not sure if Sony has a patent on how they suspend, compress, and then expand Vita's OS, but its likely techniques like that will show up on the consoles as well.