You know, the PS5 and XBone S, are both fairly decent systems; in that i mean if they weren't locked down you could probably have them as a one-system emulator machines capable of emulating probably all previous systems to this point (many of them software emulation, however recently with the move to x86 means it's an API change between the last 2 gens, so the PS5 could run the PS4 games easily enough). That MIGHT be enough, though i'd prefer if the system was unlocked and you could sideload programs and whole OSes and run a linux machine on it too.

But you know with the DRM, with the censorship, with the digital store where you HAVE to buy THEIR games at THEIR prices, and you HAVE to rebuy said games when they push the PS6, and no forwarding the games...

At the end of the day, you realize any wins Sony made, was because they saw the competition and how people were reacting, and went after them and undercut them. For the Playstation it was the '299' mic-drop, and at the 2013 it was seeing always-online-DRM and used sales being an issue and simply dropped it from their presentation, acting like the reasonable ones, when they had the exact same type of DRM plans and wanting to chip their discs, but didn't make the mistake of telling gamers not to upgrade.

Still they showed their hand with the PS3 to be the greedy people they are, with such a win from the PS2 days against the Xbox/Gamecube they were pushing the PS3 for $599 and had a custom chipset that was difficult to program for.

But this $700 (not including hard drive, or disc drive), they have once against lost sight of their customers. Most of the population doesn't have infinite disposable income. I'd say $350, maybe $400 is the most i'd consider a console for. I am not someone who every 1-2 years will drop $1000 on a phone, no i am working 6 years on my $100 phone and it works very well thank-you-very-much. But some of these companies think you want to drop thousands of dollars on new hardware and games every year, when we don't have that kind of extra cash, especially today. Maybe that means the Pro will be for streamers, sure. And maybe the system is just that good. Though i think i'd consider an 'upgrade kit' where you add to your current device rather than replacing the whole thing. No they didn't think that far ahead, nor would they want you modifying your own hardware. Heh consider that, you owning what you buy, what a laugh... Nope, not with this machine.

I'd say they have their heads up their asses, and they will have to hit near bankruptcy before they correct. They already are so censorship happy that it's annoying, and any time someone hacks their machine(s) to be better than they were to start by making them open, they have to do their best to screw the whole thing up. A reason i never touched the PSP handhelds... On top of the insane prices for proprietary memory cards at the time...

Probably best to just let them get hit with reality. Improvements to hardware and software is fine and dandy, but i think people are finding more and more they are going to get sick of digital-only as they get burned on it over and over again.

The time will work toward the "wealthy" and core gamers because... those casuals are blasting their bucket empty of coins day after day, week after week and year after year. They are already almost empty in their bags... but it will take a long time to fully "wake up" from the sheeps sleeping habits.

This is my hope i got... but we all know "time is relative" and it is hard to know the exact time of a certain change or demise.

If you got a physical copy... you FEEL the value in your hands. If you only get digital instead... using digital currencies... at some point you hardly feel how much it was costing you and what you actually got... until the point of your financial demise... which is a bit sad but a valuable lesson.

Fortunately I have zero interest in consoles (especially in a playstation 5 that has little to no exclusives) but I have no doubt that the future will be either suscription-based or pure digital, everything points in the direction at least

As for PC, as long as we still have DRM-free games which allow their preservation, I'm happy

$700 for a pro-version PS5 seems insanely out of touch, given you can buy the top-model of the current console market leader for half of that. And the Switch 2 is bound to retail at <$500.

How much of Sony's revenue is the Playstation? They used to have quite big sales of other electronics (TVs, DVD players, etc.) but I'm not so sure nowadays.

In 2023 Sony had a total revenue of around 87 billion USD with a estimated growth rate of 6% (basically reflecting the inflation, unfortunately not in line with every customers pocket). Game revenue share... i would say about 25-35% dependable on the current timeline. Currently clearly dropping... Sony may take this hint as "not so well done".

Total console revenue shares is about 54%, i guess vs. MS and Nintendo, so they are basically the "world console leader".

https://www.coolest-gadgets.com/sony-statistics

Sword and Fairy is Taiwanese which is why I was interested when I looked at it and that market has made games since the Genesis era.
That being said I would like the whole game series of this and Xuan Yuan Sword available to play and for preservation as I believe each game is an all new version.
Only way I am buying Sun Wu Kong is once it hits clearance or $20 and below prices for a physical copy.

That CE is still around here and has had no sale prices on it yet sadly. Before this I may buy the LE Taito Laserdisc set with the BR.

When the XBone and PS4 were coming out, it was clear they were pushing the 'release now, patch later' and heavy digital-only making game preservation, ownership and all that jazz more annoying. So i refused to go with it. Haven't really regretted it.

PS4 i had very low interest... did not even own many games at all, and i never got me a XboxOne.

Still no Xbox... the Xbox360 was my last Xbox i ever was owning.

With PS... i stopped buying PS4 games pretty soon but... at the launch of the PS5 i found a great opportunity as a backup PC (for DRM games) and physical disc "provider" in order to collect "good old physical games for my REAL bookshelves" which is the only one we still have left, if i remove the lackluster Xbox from the list.

In the beginning... i say the first up to 4 years... many of the PS5 releases was great and good performance too. However... now, in the middle of 2024 it is slowly starting to "drop" and the mid gen upgrade is a real mess, moving toward the wrong direction... sadly. Basically the mess started with the release of the PS5 slim... which was basically slowly killing the PS5 era... but the PS5 is not dead yet as long as my old fat PS5 is still alive and working.

I'm assuming this comes with at least 1 Edge controller.
( not really )
Where does Sony go from here?
Will there be a PS 6?
How has pricing been in the past, what did a PS4 pro cost?

Nah, the only console at a comparable price point was the first fat PS3, however... this one still had a optical drive inside and the specs surely was "crazy", it was nowhere a "usual PC".

PS4 Pro was cheaper... including optical drive, of course: 399 USD launch price.... so yeah, it is nowhere 699 USD. This is still without a drive and a vertical stand... and as usual, in the US without taxes. In the EU the PS5 Pro slim will cost 940+ EUR including drive and vertical stand!!!

However, the EX Blizzard chief (obviously there is a reason to it) said "the PS5 Pro slim actually will only cost around 350 USD upgrade because we can sell the old fat PS5 for this "new supreme upgrade" and some poor soul will thank us very much for selling our old junk PS5 with lower performance... well he did not say it exactly like this but you may get the "true expression" in the mind of someone truly affected.

Needless to say, Diablo 4 got a constant "online demand"; even if someone is playing offline only.

It only turned out to be the new digital age since Steam became the "big ruler" and everyone was following their order... on how to become economically sustainable. Sure, the mess already started at the PS3 era, when they tried to sell a lot of DLCs and whatelse... in order to decrease the value of physical discs; but it got way worse since the launch of PS4. After the launch of the PS4 and up to the moment of the PS5 slim it was actually even improving with BDs year after year because a lot of old PS4 titles has been remastered with a way more complete BD version, so for collectors sometimes almost heaven.

The biggest drop by far was... short time after Sony was providing the PS5 slim... and even worse with the anticipated release of the PS5 Pro slim. I would even say, because of the PS4 remasters or remakes... the first 3 years of the PS5 was one of the best "hard copy years" in history... but Sony is now slowly destroying it because apparently it is bigger profit for them... it is just sad.

Of course the best time ever was the PS2 era but the first 3 years of the PS5 era was a big renaissance (many old PS4 titles now in a very complete shape and adapted to the new hardware, on a huge 100 GB BD, even two BDs possible).... which is sadly now slowly becoming destroyed.

If if is continuing like this we may experience a "PSN is a digital service" shape in about 5+ years.
Most likely there will still be a PS6 but... it may be optimized for streaming (from a PSN server...) and digital only. At worst.. they could completely "wipe" any BD support!

As for MS... not sure they may provide another console... guess they may just always support their digital store (i mean thats the thing the people want... right) and provide a new OS every 2-4 years in which they try to force customers to use the new OS, even if there is almost no reason to "upgrade" other than revoking or renewing a pretty limited license, If they still fail to move the users to the new OS... simply stop all support, so the industry will not support this OS anymore.

Regarding PS5 Pro, the timeframe is way bigger now. The users barely can catch up and we got so many PS4 users still. So, they could have safely extended the period till PS5 Pro to next year... using a RDNA 4 design with more power and using a fat PS5 Pro with drive included. The PS6.... can safely be extended to 10 years after the PS5 release. The customers are not any faster, they barely can catch up, because those are mostly casual.

There was no need to hurry and releasing a half-baked system... it is just a mess.

Might as well ask, is anyone else hoping for an Indrema model to come in to offer an affordable price for a new console with a SENSIBLE pricing policy when it comes to publishing?

Yeah, I remember Sony throwing a jab at Microsoft for the always online, not used games allowed and TV clownery, I decided to trust them and bought a ps4... that was my last console lol not because it did anything particularly bad regarding DRM or the ownership of games, it just happened

But it was a funny coincidence

Wasn't the point of consoles because they are cheaper than PC?
With Linus being able to build 600$ 1080p PCs, why buy a console anymore?
I'm sure next gen GPUs will be more expensive, but unlike with consoles you can run perfectly fine on older hardware.
I got a PS5 since June '23, used it heavily while i was setting up my media server, but since that is done
all i use it for is twitch (no app on Samsung).
Doesn't support UW, gotta play AAA and AAAA titles in performance mode, and well Wonderlands looks
terrible in performance mode, and more and more PS titles are on PC...
The controller is cool though, although it isn't any more functional than my 12 year old xbox controller,
which BTW works natively, gotta use DS4windows with the dualsense (unless the game is new).

Contrary to what Sony had claimed earlier in the year, I've heard that PS5 has only recently risen to 30% of Sony's console sales. That seems to mean that the PS4 is still far outselling the PS5. And this seems to track if you've followed the price of PS4 games to PS5 games (PS4 games after launch are rising in price while PS5 games are high at release but seem to be quickly are falling in price). while having to go face-to-face with MS newest console (a "failure" in itself), the PS5 is far from a success... and the state of the games' market (Concord, Star Wars Outlaws, AC Shadows, etc.) is further diminishing this generation. To try and salvage the PS5 with a much more expensive half-gen refresh while the games' industry is contracting and the world economy is sputtering is IMHO foolhardy. But...

... undermining themselves before they can build multi-generational success is Sony's strong suit. They consistently get in their own way. Will the PS5 Pro be the new PS3 launch... or worse?