It definitely can be considered a slim model.

They actually made it smaller in addition to adding the removable disk drive.

Also note that the price of this Digital model is actually higher at $449.99. $50 higher than the original Digital model. I guess they are charging you for the ability to add the drive down the line.

I'm happy with my original model but this is a good revision, 3 years after launch.

There are gaming options outside the big three though. PC has been my main platform for a very long time, and right now it's mainly Sony that is suffering from it. That's also not the only alternative. Of course you get a different kind of an experience in at least some ways, but the point is that there are alternatives - you don't have to stand the big three.

AMD and mainly NVidia aren't good examples of price sensitiveness to be offered as alternatives to Sony/MS/Nintendo not reducing the price of their consoles.

I was responding to the lack of alternatives and competition and not (just) pricing. Prices aren't great at the moment, but there's definitely some competition, which might or might not make sense depending on various factors. The big three aren't free to do whatever they wish with no regard to other companies.

The big 3 is one more than the 2 on PC, and majority of the userbase of either don't change from PC to console and vice-versa because of policies they don't like. So saying "hey you don't like Sony not cutting the price for their PS5 new version and keeping 500 change to a 750 PC of similar capacity" doesn't really give "alternatives".

There is definitely some competition between the two camps, and Intel has also been trying to enter the GPU market, so make that at least 2½ in the PC camp as well. If GPU prices were what they were three years ago, I bet the consoles would be cheaper too, because PC gaming would seem quite a bit more attractive than it seems now. Yes, there is probably a large portion of the console market that doesn't really see PC gaming as an an attractive option, but the big three can't just ignore PC gaming either. It's competition, perhaps just not as fierce as within the console market.

Well the reason for the PC parts and consoles to be more expensive than before is the cost of the silicon have gone up for everyone, but unless you hunt for deals and luck out consoles will be more budget friendly than buying a whole PC of similar spec.

If that China company ever decided to expand to the US it would be a 3rd competitor. They only make CPU/GPUs for china and from what I hear are pretty alright. Not quite on the level of AMD/Nvidia but not that far behind either. Wish I could remember the name.