The more I read about Pro and Scorpio, the more I feel the Pro was a pre-reaction to Scorpio. I think PS was planning on a 5 or 6 year gen with PS4, but found out that XB was going for a shorter gen, mid or full upgrade, much like from Xbox to 360.
History has shown that more often than not, giving the competition an entire years lead is not a good idea and risky. I think this led PS to create the Pro, and make sure they got it out at the same time, or earlier than Scorpio. This way they could lock up their core customer base, and hopefully a bunch of other spec hungry gamers, that may jump to Scorpio otherwise. This would be a very smart move on PS's part, even if they plan on launching PS5 in late 2018 or 2019.
The last thing PS would want, is to end up in the same scenario as the 360 vs PS3 gen. PS had a spectacular console on the way, but because 360 launched a year early (most likely on purpose for XB to get an early lead) and was also quite a capable console, gamers flocked to it, and made sales tough for PS3. By releasing the Pro, PS basically eliminates that scenario this gen, and they can focus completely on PS5 which will launch sometime after Scorpio.
I'm not saying PC plays no role in their decision, I just think it was purposely presented that way so it didn't seem like PS was giving XB any props whatsoever. PC no doubt takes some gamers away from consoles later in the gen, and especially now that PS4 and XB1 aren't near as future proof as 360 and PS3 were, but I see the main threat being Scorpio, not PC.

I don't quite understand it either since one would think that people that are thinking to switch to PC would take into consideration both the benefits and disadvantages of PC. Such as having great performance but at a much higher cost. (Although a 1060 so far seems to beat the ps4 pro pretty easily so far.)

I think he said it just for marketing and nothing else. I think PC is perceived as being the highest gaming platform in terms of visuals and performance so him saying he wants to stop people from going to PC by releasing the ps4 pro could convince people who don't know much to get a ps4 pro instead. Although I would say that those people weren't going to upgrade to a PC to begin with tbh.

Just because any company gives a reason during a PR statement doesn't make it true. I don't believe Sony in the statement they made nor do I believe MS with their native 4K statement.

The bottoming is both Sony and MS chose to go for cheaper and weaker new gen consoles due to cost. They didn't want to incur huge losses again and then spend years trying to recover them via hardware. The need for a mid generation update was the only option and with phones and tablets having a similar model it became a possibility.

I don't think the Pro was a reaction to Scorpio as much as the other way round. The Pro specs are leaked way ahead of Scorpio and the console might even be released a full year before Scorpio.

Additionally MS hasn't even decided whether Scorpio is a mid gen update or a new console. Their messaging from Phil has gone from X1 family and no exclusives to part of the Xbox family, and up to developers to create exclusives. If Sony created the Pro as a reaction to Scorpio, Scorpio wouldn't be this far behind in production.

The bottom line is, both companies drop PR statements, but it doesn't necessarily mean everything within the statement holds true.

Well, we'll never really know how many people who were going to get into pc gaming have now opted to get a PS4 instead, will we?

First, I don't think high-end PC gamers are a part of this equation at all. No way is a console going to replace a $1500 gaming PC. They're not even going to try. They aren't part of the target audience. I don't know why anyone would think Sony is trying to compete in that space.

What they're more likely looking at are people in the lower mid-range market and below. Let's face it, a 5+ year old console gets beat by pretty much anything. They want people to at least consider an upgraded console before buying a $600 PC.

I think you hit the nail on the head here, I share this belief, altough I think microsoft will pull of their "native 4k" on current xbox exclusives, but that is a discussion for another time.

Personally I don't think its a bad PR qoute nor do i hate sony for the statement, I am just confused to how the PS4 Pro would be the answer to stop people from going from PS4 to PC, the obvious reasons, like lack of cash or any other known for years would simply still have applied to the base PS4 and the benefits from the PS4 Pro don't seem to compell those really exclusive high-end pc gamers to stay with a console.

I do think that the mid-console cycle might just be the new "standard" for sony if things turn out well, so far it does seem so, and I don't think its a bad strategy and I think microsoft will decide what the scorpio is after they see how people really responded to the PS4 Pro, in this case it might be good to go second

Price, i spent at least £1500. Not anymore, imo it's pointless PC gaming if you are not going to want mighty performance/graphics.

Prices have also rose a lot since i stopped.

Why would it be pointless for people to play on their prefered platform?

The PS4 Pro was made to accommodate 4K gaming with the demand of a growing a 4K television market.

Like I said earlier, PS just wanted to be on par, if not out in front of Scorpio. Your point about the Neo leaks so early, also come into play. Who knows what XB had planned. Apparently there was a more powerful Neo that PS could have gone with, but they would have missed Xmas to produce it. Maybe PS was hoping XB would show their next gen hand early in desperation and did it on purpose.

For all we know, XB was in the same 2 prototype boat and said to themselves, lets go back to the 360 play book, and launch our more so next gen console protoype, 1 entire year later than Pro, but well before PS5 and have the whole second half of the year to ourselves ,so we can brag about how we've got the newest hottest tech and have no direct competition.

That's the most logical direction for XB, since their XB1 was truly not that much different than PS4 spec wise, and got absolutely crushed early on (we all know it wasn't so much the specs that caused the XB1 poor sales) XB would much rather follow a different path, just like what NiN has been doing. Stay out of PS's spotlight, and do your own thing, and hope it pays off. Xbox was late and it only did ok, 360 was early and was a hit, XB1 was on par and didn't do great early on. It's easy to see which path forward makes the most sense for XB, and Spencer isn't an idiot like Mattrick.