First, I want to point out there is a difference between current results and future prospects and I think a lot of people are mixing this up. The PS5 is selling well now, but the question is, will it continue to sell in the future. My point is that Sony sees something we don't so they delayed the game to port it down to the PS4. And consider all the points you mentioned. With all that in mind, why would Sony not keep it a PS5 exclusive. It would clearly do well and adds another reason for PS4 owners to upgrade. It adds no benefit because now they have to delay the game to make it work on the PS4, and PS4 owners don't have to buy a new PS5. 

On ROI, first, it doesn't make sense with what you just told me. PS5s are selling at a faster pace and with higher software sales. They also are priced $10 higher. So something is off if that's the case. Second, even so, ROI isn't as relevant when you are a hardware manufacturing. First party software is designed to sell hardware. Sony invested a lot of money making the PS5, so they want it to sell and that's where the software comes in. In this case, Sony is taking an exclusive game, delaying it, and porting it down (which will increase cost). So consider this: if the return of delaying the game (cost), pushing the game out of a preferred selling time, and losing a potential PS5 sale is better than keeping it a PS5 exclusive, then something is wrong with the future prospects of the PS5. 

First off, there had to be a better way to write this reply because this is just obnoxious. If you are going to reply to something, just write normal. What always happens if people want to go line by line and then they miss the entire point. I'll just respond to the more egregious ones (which ended up being all of them save one or two)

>The benefit is that there are over 100 million PS4s out there, with high engagement. 

Maybe the folks in the thread don't understand this, but Sony invested billions in to creating the PS5. They're going to want their money back. If the point was pleasing the 100 million PS4 owners, then why even invest in the PS5 to begin with? 

>Cross platform games are the same price.  All the PS4/PS5 titles have been $60 on both platforms.  

OHHH, so now they also loss $10 on the PS5 copy to port it to the PS4. This is more evidence that this is a bad thing for the PS5. 

>Third parties are going to support the fastest selling platform.  It's absurd if you think third parties, many of which are releasing games on every platform they possibly can are going to be concerned about Sony releasing their games on their platforms.  

If Sony isn't going to release their games only on the next generation machines, then why are third parties? They'll just make everything cross-gen too. Sony likely knows this would be a problem, so, again, how is that a good thing.

>Uh not likely. Supply is technically "fine", it's demand that is through the roof.  The PS5 isn't selling out because supply is abnormally low, it's selling out because demand is abnormally high.  

Demand is high because bots buy up every system available. Demand is inflated right now. Basically what your looking at is a bubble. 

>Most likely, internal data shows that lots of people are still playing PS4 games and they don't care if games are exclusive.  

Yeah, and guess what. Sony wants those people to go out and buy a PS5. This is Consoles 101. How do you not get that??

>You're very much misunderstanding Microsoft's aim for this gen.  Microsoft doesn't care about hardware sales. Their strategy right now is to build game pass.  They've literally said that was the case. They would put their games on PS5 if Sony allowed Gamepass on PS5, they've literally said that was the case on more than one ocassion.  

If Microsoft's goal was "Gamepass" then why did they invest so much into the Series X? Obviously, these people want you to buy the machines they make. Gamepass is just another way to do that. Again, not a lot of people own an XBox One. So Microsoft is hoping that you'll get Gamepass and a new XBox to play the games on. The point is they go hand in hand.

And similarly, if you look at Sony, it's pretty clear that they've changed their strategy as well. They still care about PS5 being successful, but they are pushing hard on their own games.  That's why they released Horizon and Days Gone on PC. Because they want to introduce people to their games.  That's why they are making movies and Tv shows based off Uncharted, The Last of Us and 8 other titles.  Because Sony's primary aim isn't just to sell PS5's, it's to sell God of War, Horizon, etc, and to sell as many copies as they can.  

From June 16 2020

However, Simon Rutter, PlayStation’s EVP for Europe, says that for Sony exclusive games are “hugely important. More important, I think, than they’ve ever been. Through their proximity to the system’s designers, PlayStation’s studios are able to really extract the most out of the system performance and that’s a really valuable attribute for a platform holder to have. [PlayStation] can rely on a studio network that can really show off the innovations that we’re trying to put across … when the exclusives are as powerful as Marvel’s Spider-Man or Horizon, they are important games that people want to play.”

Take Gran Turismo, the hyper-realistic racing game that has been synonymous with PlayStation since the 90s. “Gran Turismo 7 is going to benefit from almost every single technological enhancement that we have in PlayStation 5,” says Rutter. “The loading times will be next to nothing compared to what they have been in the past. Sitting in the cockpit, the 3D audio allows you to hear the thunderous roar of a Ferrari behind you or in front of you, and you can recognise the difference between that and the engine noise of a Maserati. Driving the car using the DualSense controller, you’ll have a different feeling in your hands from the smooth undulating tarmac of a racetrack, compared to the gritty sensation on a gravel track. Pressing a soft accelerator will feel very different than pressing on a stiff brake pedal or gear paddle.”

Sony's strategy just prior to launch was exclusive games. Now, less than a year later, it's not. You can't blame COVID because this was during the height of it. So if they changed their strategy, they changed it based on new information, which is what I was asserting from the beginning. 

Aside from faster loading from the main menu, I'm not sure they can change much when it comes to hiding load times via tight passages, if they have to develop a PS4 version.

Why are you assuming they delayed the game solely to down port? A lot of these games were slated to be released in 2021. COVID19 has thrown a lot of development cycles off, and if some of these games like HFW started development on the PS4, why throw all that work away? Even with GoW, after the launch in 2018, Santa Monica started working on DLC before shelving it for being "too ambitious." That would explain why the next God of War is cross gen. Do you not see this as a viable reason why its PS4/PS5? It's the most logical one when you consider the timelines of GTS, HZD & GOW. Sony could also anticipate the majority of the market would buy the PS5 version of these games along with their PS5 despite the PS4 version. After all, the mass market doesn't care about these topics as much as hardcore gamers like us do. Or they could have a ton of PS5 bundles with GT7, HFW, or God of War. 

You're assuming Sony sees something negative in the future prospects of the PS5 and has issued cross generation games as a result. What exactly is going to make the PS5 stop selling well in 2022? Outside of Game Pass disrupting the console market, there's nothing to support your argument, and that includes publicly available data/projections. Sony is aiming for the PS5 to sell the most units ever, for any year in Playstation history in 2022, which would be 23+ Million. One thing you're forgetting about ROI is the digital revenue from sources like the PSN store, subscriptions, MTX, that could still bring in billions of profit from the PS4 in 2022/2023.

Let me ask you this, what's more likely based on what we know, Sony "forcing" a cross gen version because the PS5 has a negative future outlook, or the games started on the PS4 and the developers decided to make a PS5 version? I'm disappointed in cross generation as much as the next guy but I'm not going to start jumping to some wild conclusions because of it.

Simply cut them out, speed up the loading elevators, faster opening doors etc. A couple minor differences here and there isn't that much work. It's 2 different builds, not the ps4 version running on ps5. Or the other way around, add a loading icon to the ps4 version when entering a new area, pls wait.

I don't think semi-realism is necessarily easier. It's definitely a fallacy that cartoony graphics can't be demanding, but Guerrilla and Santa Monica's games were among the most technically advanced on console at their time, the same can't really be said of past Ratchet titles or the PS3 Resistance games despite their graphical competence.

If they weren't tethered to 2013 console tech I'm sure Horizon 2 and God of War Ragnarok would not only be significantly more technologically advanced than they will be now, but much more so than Rift Apart too.