Well, Nintendo did and there have been massive complaints about it.

I can't imagine next generation consoles launching before 2028. The tech in the PS5 and Xbox Series X is more future proof than the PS4 and Xbox One were at launch. The industry would also be able to get their pipelines on track after COVID delayed/disrupted game development. 

It doesn't seem like that bad of a deal to me. Sony is already planning to launch a revised PS5 model this year, allowing more flexibility when it comes to price cuts for the baseline models in the future, and the Pro models would offer a marginal improvement (from having performance options to one mode of 4K/60FPS) at best.

Consumers with the base PS5 would still get all the advancements of this generation even if a Pro model were to release next year. And even if Sony weren't planning to release a PS5 Pro, they could very well cut the price of the PS5 next year, which could be seen as a middle finger to consumers who purchased the PS5 the year prior. 

As long as a slim launches this year, then ok.

I just want the smaller cheaper option without sacrificing power.

Pardon me but I really have to doubt your last statement in lights of the fact that they just recently upped the pricing of said console due to the ramping inflation. 

I imagine them being actually more shy to really do deals on their hardware but more so do like Nintendo does with bundling titles to keep the price of said hardware to it's base.

For manufacturing ease and costs purpose, the new slim model will prolly adopt the same pricing as the current version and slowly fizzle out the past console. 

We're past the "decrease hardware prices to invigorate sales pump" phase of the industry during the 7th Gen and 8th Gen.

I don't think it will be all that expensive. PS5 is getting a new model later this year according to leaks which will replace the current PS5 and PS5 Digital, one with no disc drive by default, that will include a SKU with a bundled plug-in external disc drive to replace the disc drive launch PS5. This model is said to be cheaper to produce than the current PS5. I would imagine we may see the first price cut alongside it as a result, down to $350 for the disc drive-less model and $450 with the bundled external disc drive. I would imagine base PS5 and PS5 digital would get a second price drop in 2024 alongside the PS5 Pro launch assuming it does indeed release Holiday 2024 as rumored.

So Holiday 2024 something like $300 PS5 Digital, $400 PS5 bundled external disc drive, $600 PS5 Pro maybe. That's $200 more than PS4 Pro was, but the rumored specs for PS5 Pro are fairly high, I believe the AMD GPU that is speculated for PS5 Pro has 23 tflops or so, compared to 10 tflops on base PS5. That GPU alone is expected to cost $300-400 on launch on PC. That is pretty powerful and it shouldn't be as CPU bound as the PS4 Pro was, as the CPU in PS5 Pro is expected to be a larger upgrade over base PS5 than PS4 Pro's CPU was over base PS4.

I don't see this as a middle finger to early adopters, it's launching 4 years minimum after the original. PS4 Pro launched only 3 years after the PS4 to a lukewarm reception, and most people kept buying the standard PS4 which was about a third the power. I think Sony's going for a "limited" production (10-15 million), high specs (RTX 4070~), at a minimum price of $700 for the disk drive version and $600 for the DE. It'll be positioned as their enthusiast console so it won't matter if it doesn't sell much. It's for the few that care too much about resolutions and don't intend to switch to PC.

I'll probably get the standard PS5, upgrade my PC towards the end of the generation and make it my sole/primary gaming system, then switch back to PS (PS6) 3 years into the generation when crossgen is hopefully over. This would be repeat to my gaming path last generation.

That timing makes sense and this gen lasting an extra year isn't what I'd like to happen but it'd be very understandable considering the circumstances. Looking around there's a lot of negative reactions to this which is strange since all it is is an option for those who want to keep playing games at 4K, have better quality ray tracing and keep playing games at 60fps since more and more won't offer an option for that. By 2025 or 2026 big games won't exactly be running great on the PS5 and Series X so a PS5 Pro and Xbox Series whatever is needed to keep performance at a good quality on console.

Imagine what PC gamers feel like with a new middle finger releasing every year or so! 😁

That's great news

If this generation really seems to last long (2029 or even later) then I'm definitely getting the Pro model one year or so after launch.