My major gripe with Playstation, I have is that it takes advantage of XBOX position in certain regions.

In the US, XBOX is still a real competitor. In Japan and Europe less so.

So Playstation prices it's products in Japan and Europe much higher relative to US. It think this is scummy.

Don't expect those at a State of Play, those titles will most likely be announced at a Playstation showcase. An event that happens once every 1..5 years. The last was is May 2023, during that showcase Concord and Fairgames where announced and we got a good view at Spider-Man 2. States of Play usually are not the place where Sony announces their big guns. 

The best hope is December 3rd to see what Sony will be up to in the future (2025/2026). As for Bend and ND, the former is small and is probably developing a large open world game so it will take long.

ND has lost a lot of time with factions and unlike popular believe I still think pretty much all ND resources where put to that end and the ports. So I dont expect to see much of ND soo either.

Sucker Punch should be ode to GOT2 though, it should be at least in showable state. House marque and Bluepoint also should have something showable by now.

Terribly scummy. We are paying 886 USD for the PS5 PRO here. That's kick in the balls alonbgwith the price of games. People say it's tax but at 20% VAT that only accounts for 140 increase in price. Either they really like even numbers or they're squeezing us. For an extra 50. Then you have the stores that'll wanna make profit and they love even numbers too. I see no reason why the PRO can't be 749 here but they should really be eating cost and releasing for 699 like they did with ps4 and ps4 pro. 

Some other examples (US, Netherlands, Japan)

Compare Astro Bot vs. Mario Odyssey:
US: $60 for both, no difference (+0%)
NL: €60 for Mario, €65 for Astro (+8.3%)
Japan: ¥5980 for Mario, ¥7255 for Astro (+21.3%)

Compare Optional Discdrive:
US: $80
NL: €120
Could not find Japan price.

Difference between PS5 digital and disc:
US: $450 vs $500, that's a $50 difference (+11.1%)
NL: €450 vs €550, that's a €100 difference (+22.2%)
Japan:¥72980 vs ¥79980, that's a ¥7000 difference (+9.6%)

The VAT being included vs. Salestax can't explain these things.

The optical disc drive has no reason to be higher than 100. They are indeed fucking us but good lord, the poor Japanese are getting a bigger strap on with no lube.

Sony are expanding their software variety and their hardware variety.
Seems like ppl are just upset that Sony is trying to do new things for their business and they aren't the target audience for these business expansions.

Raising prices and an unwillingness to take any risks is why ppl are upset with modern Sony. You are correct in saying that PS5 does have a nice variety of games: There is HFB, GOWR, FFVIIReB, SM2, Wukong, Stellar Blade, and now Astro…but notice how these (with the exception of Astro and SB) are all *very* safe games. Nothing crazy, nothing super original. Just a ton of guaranteed money-makers. It’s very unappealing when compared to all prior generations, in which Sony dared to be bold.

As well as other factors.

Alas, if we don't but the fear of failure in them now they'll fail miserably when the time comes. Who knows, they might even pull another apple (or as they did with the ps vita memory) and try to sell us their hardware, dongles and gadgets sticking out of the ps6 with no universality. Screw that future. 

Yes, I like games and there are not that many games coming out from Sony.

Originality is harder to achieve in modern games. VR games are original in feel and input but Sony couldn't spend more on them because A) the entry price is too high, B) no one is buying PSVR2, and C) they WILL get criticisms for it by non-VR players thinking they're wasting their resources. It's impossible to please everyone.

In addition to Stellar Blade and Astro... Helldivers 2, Destruction Allstars, and Returnal were fairly original/different (Destruction allstars sucked and bombed, but hey at least they tried). Rift Apart and Sackboy are from unpopular genres as well (outside Mario primarily and Nintendo to an extent). Sony's variety is nowhere near as bad as some claim. They still got a number of upcoming funded and published games that cover genres they don't develop internally, the next one should be Lost Soul Aside (which is admittedly taking forever to make).

What went wrong with Sony is Japan Studio's closure (which is unfortunate but understandable given the studio's failure to produce a single consistent franchise in 4 generations, and barely any million sellers from PS2 onwards), and their increased focus on AAA games which is hurting their productivity and output.

And I wouldn't call their projects "guaranteed money-makers" after the historic bomba that is Concord lol. They are taking risks, just not the kind that you or I want.

Hopefully AstroBot crushes their expectations, and Team Asobi gets expanded to the capacity where they can develop two AA games simultaneously with a 3 year development cycle each.