Well, it's a ps4 game alright, not even a system seller in JP anymore. 

I really do not care about the short term profits of multinational billion dollar corporations. They will get their money in the end anyway.

Scalpers aren't a cause for a problem, they are a symptom of an existing problem. So I'd rather we tackle that than wasting time and effort on short term symptoms that won't matter a year down the line.

Although I dont think there should be any government actions against it as there are much more important things to be solved, Sony and the retailers themselves could help somehow. There are several ways of doing it, for example, I believe Sony having a system to allow people with old and active psplus accounts would help. Anyway I dont think they care, in the long run the impact is minimal. Or retailers acepting pre-orders with the full payment upfront and some sort of identification. It can be done, it depends on them.

supposedly year1, for the PS5 looks like this:

Horizon - Forbidden West
Spiderman - Miles Morales
Gran Turismo 7
Ratchet & Clank - Rifts Apart
Demon Souls
Returnal
SackBoy - A big Adventure
Destruction All-Stars
Astro's Playroom
KENA - Bridge of Spirits
Godfall
Ghostwire - Tokoyo
Project Athia
STRAY
Solar Ash
Goodbye Volcano High
Deathloop
Jett - the far shore
Bugsnax
OddWorld : Soulstorm (also on PS4)

 All of these comments make a lot of sense to me. Something seems a little bit off with the article, as it provides concrete number for physical sales but avoids talking about exact digital sales. It's kind of odd to make analysis of consoles sales based on physical software sold, specially when one of the main features of the console is that it is 100% digital. 

But taking that argument aside for a little bit, Scalpers buy consoles in order to sell them, I would assume that hey are being able to sell them right now (but that is a stat that would be interesting to know). Therefore if they resell them, it would be to someone that purchases a game as well. For this reason, software sales are probably still above the 1 per console sold. It is simply the fact that digital sales are so tough to track that this kind of analysis is almost impossible to make.

But to the original argument that scalpers are hurting sony (or any other company), I think that there are two scenarios:

Scenario 1: They are buying them and Reselling them

In this scenario, a console would have been sold anyways, therefore sales would have been the same for hardware. In terms of software or extra accessories I think it might hurt sales because people have a limited amount of money to spend, so paying double  for the console will probably hurt the chances of that same money being spent on software or extras.

Scenario 2: They are buying them and not being able to resell  them.

In this scenario, it means console sales probably would have been lower, meaning they might be helping the console out by creating the sense of scarcity and creating all the headlines of record breaking sales. On the negative side, they might be generating false expectations for the main company and other software developers that might look at those headlines and make a decision of ramping up production of a console that might not have the demand it appears to be having.

In this case, I think that it seems to be Scenario 1.

In general scalping is something that it would be better if it didn't exist, but in the end, if people want a console, they can simply wait a few months and be able to get it at regular price, so it really affect the first few months. Here is where the idea of @wohufana seems really good. A march release would allow for higher stock as maybe factories are able to focus more exclusively instead of trying to compete with all the other products that want to sell in during the holidays. It also provides with less urgency by consumers to get the system. I think that scalpers might benefit a lot from people trying to buy these as gifts for christmas, people end up spending large sums of money because they really want to get that gift to their loved one. In march, this urgency would drop so demand for scalped consoles should be a bit lower. 

I agree with the point.

But evidencing physical sales in what will be a very strongly digital console/era isn't great evidence.

Plus early buyer s don't need discounts from the holidays. I'm a Nintendo early buyer and always buy their devices brand new at MSRP and almost all their games.

The only reason the PS5 and Series S/X launched at their state was because these multi-billion dollar corps wanted their Xmas bonuses. Too much money is lost if they release after Xmas. Hence the under manufacturing of units and scalper issues. This could have all been avoided if both Sony and Microsoft considered waiting for more supply and delayed the launches.

All I have to say about scalpers is that they say it's simple supply and demand. But haven't both consoles launched at record breaking numbers? If so, then there's plenty of supply and scalpers are just using bots to intercept shipments to genuine consumers. In a year without Covid, all those consoles being hoarded by scalpers would have made their way to stores and been purchased by actual consumers by now. Same goes for the graphics cards.

This explains why softwares sales are so low compared to hw sales.
Software is what brings in the money, not the hw.