I think it’s because Sony hasn’t really produced that many PS4s anymore. It’s all about allocating resources to get more PS5s to market. So no point in lowering the price of a last Gen console. Especially if it isn’t gonna make great returns with a lower price point.

Sony did a great job turning around its brand with the latter half of the PS3’s life all the way to the entire life of the PS4. 117-118 million LT units to be top 5 all time in LT console sales is amazing.

PS4 will go down as one of my favorite consoles, 117 million is an excellent amount of hardware sold. Would it have been nice to see it reach even higher? Sure, but it had a great run after 9 years. I'm looking forward to the 9th gen really taking off and seeing what PlayStation and its partners produce over the next 5-7 years for PS5.

This is kinda irrelevant but I noticed Sony and Nintendo's top consoles are neck to neck.
PS2 & DS - 158.7m & 154m
PS4 & GB - 117m & 118.7m
PS & Wii - 102.5m & 101.6m
PSP & GBA - 80.8m & 81.5m
And some other close ones

Adjusted for inflation consoles have never been cheaper, Sony likely couldn’t drop the price anymore than they did. The $250 the PS4 was going for before the shortages would have been equivalent to roughly $175 in 2006. The $200 digital only Xbox One would have been equivalent to spending $140 for a console in 2006. 

Seems like that might haver been temporary as Sony expects profits to be down and software sales are way down for a system that already wasn't seeing great software sales

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/29/23283410/sony-playstation-game-sales-down-q1-2022

Its more likely that trend will decrease, not increase. COVID gave a temporary boost to the industry but that's waning and its likely going in the other direction due to high inflation and possible recession on the horizon (or worse, stagflation). 

As stated previously, when looking at PS and Xbox generations combined they don't really exceed a certain threshold. Whilst you can call it extrapolation, it does remain a general trend. Xbox is clearly doing better this generation, with around an extra of 2.5 million more consoles at this time than last generation.

I'd also like to point out that everyone who claims that the PS5 could sell x amount of units a week if it had the stock. It could, but not sustained.

*Note all of these numbers are arbitrary*
If 2 million people want a PS5 right this moment and 100,000 extra people wanted one each passing week, but sony can only produce 200,000 units a week, then we would have sustained sales of 200,000 for about 20 weeks before declining to 100,000 which is the new amount of people interested in getting into the market.
2,000,000 + 100,000x - 200,000x
where x equals number of weeks

But if sony could produce 300,000 they would have sustained sales of 300,000 for about 10 weeks before dropping down.

The reason I bring this up is because for as unsure as we are about the current excess demand for the ps5, we can't say for certain that these sales figure would carry on, just as we can't say that the number of consoles sold in a generation between PS and Xbox are for sure interlinked, we just have an idea of the trend

Demand was much greater due to Covid. Not sure if it is still that much greater than PS4/XBO at the same time period after launch.

Also, this could just mean that the systems are more front-loaded. Having a big start doesn't have to mean it will last for a long while, just look at the Wii.

As for the PC part, I think that's the reason why Playstation plus Xbox totals have been constantly dropping each generation, but I don't think the PC will cut the legs of this gen short.

Well Sony stated at the end of last year or beginning of this year, when PS4 sales were 116 and change, that they were only going to produce 1 million more, so for anyone who remembers that announcement we already knew 117.xx was going to be the final number.

I think Sony cut PS4 off so drastically because of supply issues. What systems they could manufacture they wanted to make sure they got out as many PS5's as possible.

As for the Xbox + PS numbers this gen, I think we'll see it get back to around that PS2+Xbox number of 183 million, perhaps even a bit above it. I don't think the slow decline of that market will continue this gen, as both companies have decent offerings. Xbox is strong this gen relative to last gen and PS is fairly strong as always and I think PS5 will pass 100 million but I don't see it doing 117 million. I could see 100-105 million for PS5 and 75-80 million for Xbox. I think they'll try to stretch out this gen as much as possible and have mid-gen upgrades like last gen.

Passing Wii and PS1 I think would be a great goal for PS5.

#4 highest selling system of all time is a very impressive result, Sony should be very happy with this, especially surpassing its predecessor the PS3 by roughly 30 million units.

PS4 deserves the success it had for the most part but some of it is overinflated thanks to Wii U and XBO being such fuck ups. XBO to me is the worst console ever made to surpass 50 million units. It's practically a worthless system esp now. Vita. Dreamcast. Saturn. PC Engine are better systems even tho they sold less thanks to their fantastic libraries. XBO has one of the most vapid and mediocre libraries I have seen on a console since N64. Outside of first party what is there you can't get better somehwere else? (and XBO's first party wasn't even half as good as N64's even).

PS5 won't hit PS4's numbers. Xbox is in a better position. Nintendo is on it's way to have the 1st or 2nd best selling system of all time. So the other 2 are healthy. PS5 doesn't have a lot of third party games that are gen 9 only yet and their big hitter this year is just a remake of a remaster? lol