PSP > Vita and PS2 > PS3 might disagree with this assertion! 

The point of Playstation sales being stable is because Sony is always capturing other consoles market share

First SEGA and Nintendo, now it's Xbox. Have you seen Xbox Series sales lately? They have been significantly down 

In 2023 30% of PS5 active accounts were new accounts: https://www.vgchartz.com/article/456194/sony-nearly-30-of-ps5-monthly-active-users-never-used-a-ps4/

Of course, this includes people who create new accounts as well, but anybody with a digital library will try to keep their old accounts to have access to their PS4 games 

I miss the days when PlayStation used to be an affordable platform. The price of their services is insane

I can't justify paying so much just for cloud saves and online play

The only thing keeping me from dropping it entirely and going fully over to PC is the lack of physical games for PCs. If the PS6 follows the Switch 2's strategy regarding physical games being more expensive and requires a mandatory purchase of a disc drive like the PS5 Pro, then I'm done with PlayStation

4 - "Sony can charge whatever they want because their games are validated by Geoff Keighley's Show, even though I have no idea who even votes there."

Don't forget about inflation and currency rates! 

I wouldn't be too worried about Nintendo catching some criticism. We'll have people crying about Marathon tomorrow and mentioning Concord lol. 

I think physical games with a higher msrp for PlayStation will likely happen within this gen. Perhaps Sony will start doing so with Ghost of Yotei, already. 

Prices are getting crazy. But since the PS4 launched, I only subscribed to PS Plus for like 3 months in total lol. Get yourself a decent PC (it doesn't have to match PS5's specs) and use it for multiplayer games and other hobbies. A decent PC is never a bad purchase even if you don't game at all. I got mine for music and business and ended up gaming on it.

Lack of physical media on PC only started to bother me recently after I realized how cheap console gaming is if you aren't afraid of using platforms like eBay. Why is nobody talking about this? Physical basically enables you to play games almost free of charge even if you don't have many real life friends to trade your games with. It's a major advantage for active gamers.

I'm still pretty much 99% digital because my PC and the PS5 I'm using are digital only. The only physical games I got for the last 5 years were Tekken 7, Sekiro, and Tears of the Kingdom.

It sucks for those who haven't gotten around to getting their PS5 yet. But still, it's not that bad. Each generation I get the new PS and I'm good to go for the next 7 years or so. I buy everything digitally, so I just put things on my wishlist and there's discounts and offers all the time. I know what I'm getting and I'm a happy cat.

Consistency and marketing helps quite a bit. SNY makes this blatantly obvious with their naming scheme, and more recently, keeping the same font even. Their messaging and marketing tend to be quite clear most of the time as well. Consumers like this.

Nin tried this with Wii and then Wii U but failed due to poor marketing and messaging. They've since learned with Switch and Switch 2 and look likely to succeed this time, in part due to consistency, among other things.

And then there's XB...

Then there's Steam :D