PS5 will be 499. Get it out of your head that it will be lower. Sony needs to take no precautionary steps.

You're probably right.

I reckon Sony needs to be cautious about PS5DE price tag tho. Casual consumers will be tempted to compare PS5DE and S without bearing in mind their tech differences.

No WAY, absolutely not!

I agree. 

I can't imagine there being very many people predicting otherwise for the model with a disc drive, so not sure who you're aiming this at. The discless one on the other hand will be cheaper - the only question is by how much. At this point, anything over 399 is just going to kill the discless version, but bringing it down to 299 or even 349 sounds like a big sacrifice of profits (at least in the short term - in the long term, increased sales of digital games might make up for it).

PS5 vs XBSX shouldn't be much of a concern. The hardcore (and internet bandwidth deprived) will be the ones going for the disc model for the most part. The hardcore understand more so how all of the consoles specs matter and what the software does with those specs matters a lot. 

PS5 matching XBSX at $499 is totally fine. Anything less is a bonus.

PS5 DE is the real concern because of XBSS. SNY cannot allow anymore than a $100 price gap. If they were thinking about a $50 sub for both units, they might want to leave PS5 at $499, and use a $100 sub to get PS5 DE down to $399 or lower. If SNY went ahead and made it $150 sub for PS5 DE, then it's basically game over, even with PS5 at $499.

The only concern there would be anyone knowledgeable enough to complain about why PS5 DE is $349 while PS5 is $499, even though the only difference is a $30-$50 4k BD drive. XB can get away with it because of the overall lesser hardware specs. SNY may not be able to create the same type of price gap without receiving backlash.

I'd say based on all this, you end up with a $499 PS5 and $399 PS5 DE. It's going to give XBSS some sales it otherwise wouldn't early on, but by holiday 2021, all SNY has to do is bundle some killer exclusives with PS5 DE to make up for the higher price vs XBSS.

Don't know. Both are good machines and will likely get one eventually, but for me they haven't showed anything that value for money as a reason why I need to buy a ps5.

if halo was released on launch that would've been a gamebreaking launch for xbox,
now there is no reason to buy xbox day one

If there is no issues with PS5 supply and it can launch on time, then it could grab a global win for the launch season. It's been a crazy year and hopefully inventories won't be a problem. Both systems will most likely sell out for the Holidays it just depends who will have the largest inventory available.

True, and the BD drive difference should get cheaper in terms of industry cost quite quickly. Indeed, even a $100 difference just because a disc drive can be called nonsense for the picky ones.