I've always been a fan of PS IPs like GOW and LBP. But what does being a fan have to do with console sales?

I don't know. But I think you said that.

This is most likely going to be the Switch's best year, with the launch of new HW, possibly with a price cut, and Pokemon.  That will be pretty much all of Nintendo's big guns fired.  Maybe one more price cut.  PS4 may not have too many big games launching this year, but it does have room for price cuts and may have another HW revision, as well.  It will also see many cross-gen releases that will be on the PS5, as well, in the coming years.  And considering the PS5 will most likely be $449-$499, budget gamers will be more inclined to buy a PS4 at $199, maybe eventually $149, to play those games.  Nothing that will bring it back to its former glory years, but it will add to its legs.

Right now, the PS4 has a ~17.5M lead.  It's going to take much more than a 2M-3M lead in its best year to make that kind of gap up. 

All guns fired?

1. This will be the first mainline Pokemon title on the Switch, but certainly not the only one
2. Nintendo still has tons of IP where they can make great games, not mentioning any potential new IP
3. Why do you think there will be only 1-2 pricecuts? I'm positive that there can and will be more than that.

Also, PS5 at $449? Only if it matches or slighly outdoes One X performance. $499 is the minimum, not the ceiling.

As for the budget gamers: If the PS5 is backwards compatible, there's little reason to keep your PS4. So many will trade them in for a PS5, meaning that the used market will flow over with PS4 consoles and ruining the value of new PS4 consoles. Even at $149, they won't sell many of them anymore after PS5 launch - except if the PS5 is too expensive for everybody (Hello, PS3 launch!).

Sorry, doublepost.

So, wait, which is it? Is the PS5 going to be so expensive that there will be a $300+ (which won't be closed much if the used market becomes as saturated as you say it will) between it and the PS4, or is it going to be cheap enough that no PS4's will be sold after it's launch because everyone, even budget gamers, have jumped ship? Can't have it both ways.

Also, launch PS3s played PS2 games, and while there were tons of used ones out there, the PS2 still sold. Same goes for the PS1. The PS4 isn't going to just stop selling. At $149, it would be closer to an impulse buy for budget gamers and parents wanting a cheap system for the kids. Those types of people will wait for the PS5 to hit that price, as well.

And it will have been 3 years since the X launched and you think Sony could only slightly outdo it with a $50 savings? That's not how tech works. Sony also always takes a loss on HW. So, while it may be priced at $449, it'll cost them $549 to build.

I'm saying that only one of the two will sell anything. If the PS5 is priced right, then the PS4 will stop selling. If it's too expensive, the PS4 will continue selling until the PS5 drops enough in price.

The PS2 still sold because the PS3 didn't. It continued to sell as Sony ditched the backwards compatibility as one of it's first cost-saving measures, so to be sure to be able to play PS1-PS2 games, you had to buy a PS2.

PS1 is part of another era, where the console manufacturers kept the old console on the market and supplied them with games as the budget option until their successor's successor came out. But that's not really done anymore these days. Sony made 1st party games for the PS1 until 2004. That's akin to make first party PS4 titles until 2025. PS2 was also kept alive from Wii ports, as their hardware was similar, otherwise it would have died much earlier.

@bolded: Tech these days works slowly, as shrinks get more and more apart. At the same time, prices have shot up over the last years.

AMD got applauded for it's $499 pricetag of their top model, but in 2012, Lisa Su would have been booed of the stage for moneygrabbing. A Core i7 3770K had a release price of $278 back then, and quickly went further down. But nowadays, you'll have to cash double that amount for the best Mainstream desktop chips.

Same deal on the GPU side: A GeForce 680 hat a $499 pricetag. A 980Ti sit at $649, a 1080Ti $699, and a 2080Ti at a staggering $1199 - even the 2080's $799 pricetag is $100 more than than the 1080Ti at release. Even AMD went up in prices depite being outmatched: a 7970 and a 290X each cost $549 at launch, but Vega 64 liquid and Vega VII had a $699 pricetag

All that results in hardware in general getting more expensive, and Semi-custom chips are certainly no exception to the rule. And since AMD can now sustain without the semi-custom console deal, they don't need to accept Sony's and Microsoft conditions, but can set the terms - and that means they will get more expensive for the same amount of chip size.

Btw, I'm also pretty sure that that's part of the reason, why we didn't get any real pricecuts for years now, only short term promotions, both on Playstation and Xbox side

Ok, honest question here:
I'm a total analphabet when it comes to Pokemon, but isn't Pokemon Go supposed to be a remake of Pokemon Yellow? So why is this not considered a mainline Pokemon? Or wasn't Pokemon Yellow a mainline game to begin with?

Or is it not considered a mainline title precisely because is a remake?

And sorry to barge in in your discussion but I had to address this:

Errr.. Nintendo did only ONE price cut for the Wii U in its lifetime. And before you tell me that was because of costs, in the last 2.5 years they have refused to do even heavy promotions for the Switch. I mean, besides the $30 gift card, what other promotions have they done?

So I think you are being waaay too optimistic about those price cuts. BUT, on the other hand, I think they will follow the 3DS route and launch a cheaper version. So that should help a lot anyways.

You may barge in, no problem

Nintendo only did one because they knew a second one wouldn't have changed anything, and because Nintendo got pretty bad deals from suppliers due to the the low sales numbers. Having cut the price then would maybe have resulted in 1M more sales a year, but would also have resulted in bleeding money. Unless they would have had a serious chance in reversing the bad sales, cutting the price wasn't an option for Nintendo on the Wii U.

Besides, the first pricecut did practically nothing to the Wii U, what do you think that tells you if you're in the position of an executive? That another one would just be a waste of money, for the most part.

Pokemon Let's go is both a remake of 1st Gen and, more importantly, a spinoff of the mobile Pokemon Go - and thus doesn't qualify as a mainline title.