Might Sony go with a two-SKU strategy next-gen (like Microsoft did with Series S)?

[DonFerrari]

scrapking said:

DonFerrari said:

Nope, they shouldn't and likely won't. PS5 as is makes fine sales, no reason to get another system that would drag them full gen. Actually I would like they to cut crossgen faster than this gen (although I think it will be even longer).

I agree.  I was excited about the PS5 Pro and One X back in 2016/2017 but, now that the Series S has shown that overpowered last-gen consoles can underperform cheaper new-gen consoles, I'm no longer in favour of mid-gen "Pro" consoles.  If you have backwards compatibility on new hardware, and game streaming of new-gen games to old hardware, retiring the last generation as soon as possible is in everyone's best interest (consumers, the hardware manufacturers, and developers).

The only problem is actually the availability of HW. The reason PS still kept producing and supporting PS4 base for over 2 years after release of PS5 is sales of SW not HW. Due to limited availability of HW to be purchased they limiting the new titles to new HW would severely impact possible SW sales (at a time that cost to make SW is much higher than on previous gen). And if we look for some key 1st party titles it seems like 70% of their sales were already on new HW (because there is people holding on buying the title, even when there is free upgrade available, so they can play on the best hw).

For next gen I only see they cutting support short if for some reason they are able to produce a lot more HW since start of gen so they have less need to keep selling on older gen. I won't ever buy the idea of any company being purely pro customer, they are first pro profit, so the duration of support for previous gen (and even BC) will exist depending on what make more profit for them.