The 9th gen already launched and thankfully, didn't bring that trend along. Hopefully when Sony and Microsoft join it, they don't do the same.

Still they can launch on hundreds of PC specs.

At the cost of optimization. Just look at the quality of gaming experiences we're getting out hardware roughly equivalent to mid-range PCs from 2012 or so. Do you think a game like Horizon is going to run smoothly on a 5 year old mid-range PC? I highly doubt it.

Edit: The PS4's graphics processing is roughly equivalent to a Radeon HD 7850. That doesn't meet the minimum specs of games like the Witcher 3, for example, and that game came out 2.5 years ago. Imagine if the PS5 had a hard time running the latest games just 3-4 years after release.

Sales of the mid-gen upgrades are strong, relative to expectations.  That means that consumers want those items, at least enough to satisfy the hardware companies.  That's basically the definition of demand justifying supply.  

Well as the price goes down, some will purchase both. Anecdotally I know numerous people that upgraded to the X1S because it was eventually $200-250. But offered no significant improvments.

So if people buy the budget option first, later they may buy the premium model after price cuts.

The phone audience is different and I believe having the latest high end device there is more about being trendy. I feel like the console audience wants real features to justify a premium console purchase.

Which may be why the PS4 Pro hasnt created much excitement, it didnt demonstrate improvments like X1X does.

I wouldn’t be surprised. If Sony launched a PS5 Pro alongside PS5, that is significantly more powerful at a couple hundred dollars more, I’d most likely buy it. The only downside would be if there were updates to things like HDMI or sound systems after the fact. 

I considered things like that. Revisions like the Xbox One S added new features, so that could happen even if standard and premium consoles launch at the same time.

Maybe even a midgen refresh could happen for 8K or something.

As long as the games work on all models with varying graphical settings, I dont think consumers would much care. Upgrading would not be a necessity. I just a PS4S becauuse Pro is not a necessity.

I'd rather have a mid gen premium option, better spec for more reasonable price, technology changes a lot in 3-4 years, if they did base and premium at launch the premium would either be stupidly expensive or not that big of a performance bump.

Or worse, they would hold back spec / performance on the base unit to encourage people to buy the premium, while ripping off anyone that went with the base

And which hardware spec should developers target to optimize for and show off launch titles?

Inititial software sales are already lower on a new platform, and now you want devs to put effort in multiple versions right from the start. Either it's gonna run a bit shit on the base model or the premium model isn't worth the premium price at launch. It invites a wait and see approach for consumers, slowing down initial HW sales.

Offer SKUs with different storage options instead, SSD vs HDD models, or a 4K blu-ray model next to a digital only model and let devs optimize for one HW spec at launch.

No thanks. Ps5 for $400 and 3 years later ps5 pro. Thank you!