I guess. I just don't like them splitting the fanbase like that. Its usually not that bad to have the first iteration, but then a game like Control comes around and reminds you that you have the inferior version.

having a 4 year cycle would split fanbase much more. Every game work fine on the base console, actually the pro was most of a left over since they made sure all games worked on base most of the games on Pro was just little more pixels and stable framerate.

This will, over time, make more people gravitate towards cloud services, when they realize they won't need to spend money upfront to upgrade to their systems every 2-3 years.

Well the original Xbox had a 4 year cycle and the 360 did well. Same with the WiiU to Switch.

Im more inclined to buy a new console for 500, than an upgrade of the current one for 400. 

I'll definitely buy another mid-gen upgrade. Not sure exactly when I'll buy the standard PS5. Probably a couple months after launch, just in case it ends up having reliability issues. Knock on wood.

There's an obvious reason both of those consoles released a successor very quickly.

Xbox- 24 million

Wii U- 13.56 million

If you're the market leader like The PS4 cutting out over 40 million unit sales after the 4 year mark and billions in profit would be madness.

On the software side longer generations allows for multiple releases from studios, familiarity with the hardware, advancement in tech and hopefully better games. 

Well why not just make games for your popular console then? Whats the reason to upgrade it? To compete with the PC?

Not for me, I can decide if I want to buy an upgrade basically if I have spare money I'll buy, if not I won't. But I won't go to cloud for as long as HW allows me.

So your reasoning is that we should cut profitable consoles in 4 years because we have seem unsucessfull consoles be cut in 4 years?

You can buy the console when gen start and have it without buying mid-gen refresh. No one is required to buy mid-gen, actually even when it launched it was about 20% of sales, so most people don't have a need to buy the upgraded even when they don't have the base yet. They rather save money.

Because of saturation, the nextgen consoles are released about when the SW sales peak (and will start to slow down) so with the new HW you offset that loss in SW and it will keep balance.

The reason for a company to offer an upgrade is very simple- to make more money.

Both MS and Sony know that there is a section of their consumer base interested in the latest new tech. Targeting these consumers extends beyond just console upgrades. There's been a noticeable increase in the focus on high end peripherals as well, controllers, headsets etc.

A mid gen upgrade allows them to bridge the gap between generations and ultimately make more profit on hardware.

In particular this generation the focus was on 4k. Next generation it may be something else entirely. 

Yep from all we know PS3 either never sold at profit or just in the very end of life while PS4 and even X1 sold for profit for like 80% of the time and with the midgen upgrades they both sold for a premium and then a lot more profit.