hindsight is 20/20. 

Perhaps they could've done things differently in some cases, but wanting to expand into live service is not a mistake in of itself. Sony wanting to expand it's catalogue, genre stylings, game types is a good thing. 

We know why they don't do smaller games, because they got burned on it during the PS3 and PS4 gen. There is a reason Studio Japan doesn't exist anymore, because their AA games were not selling well enough. 

At the end of the day, PS is still a healthy business. We can only hope that the success of Astrobot means they give more chances for content like this. But really, what Sony should be doing is utilising XDev more to get more content based on their own IPs rather than others. 

Once again the industry should learn from Nintendo. They seem to be doing just great. Nobody needs Raytracing, 8K textures and all that crap. All the people want is fun games. Hell, the most successful games of the last 10 to 20 years arguably were pretty cheap to make, even outside from Nintendo. Like Minecraft, PUBG, Human Fall Flat, Stardew Valley, Undertale and so on.

You don't need a high budget for a successful game. You just need to focus on what's actually important, and that's not grfxxx and not live services. =P

With that in mind, I don't see a problem with sticking to today's hardware for quite some time. We simply have reached a point where it's good enough and the few people that actually care so much about graphics will get a PC anyway. So just keep the PS5 around for another ten years and focus on great games for the platform. Hell, even the PS4 is still good enough for most games.

Nintendo gets it.

We have heard this comment many times before, but never an explanation on the why? Sure there is inflation, but something else must be going on.

I have a theory. I think it could be related to ever increasing file size. It's easier for 1 man to carry a brick up on a mountain path, then 1000 men carry an elephant. Or perhaps a better analogy, the difference between carrying a piece of wood compared to a piece of gold of the same size, but different weight.

With ever increasing file sizes, simply handling the amount of data becomes an issue to itself. (Re-) Compiling data takes longer after changes to software including bugfixes, So the total file needs to be split in ever smaller pieces to make it manageable. This than causes a higher risk of issues when those pieces are put back together again. File size does not only increase due to a larger scope of the game, but also due to higher res objects and such.

So I'm not arguing games get bigger, but arguing they are getting heavier in a way.

I know we are talking about the industry in general but these kind of comments always draw my attention because some people are used to describe PS games like "products to appeal to the broadest audience" but if the transition to pc has highlighted something is that PS games aren't what the "broadest audience" wants. Actually PS is focused in a very specific audience, the PS (current, sorry old folks) fanbase a fanbase that has been cultivated since the moment TLOU came out in 2013 and was one of the factors that saved Sony from bankruptcy. Yes some of those games sell a lot of copies on PS but that's just because the fanbase can be that big for some IPs. That's why when I see comments criticizing those game trying to show fake superiority (not talking about you btw lol) I can't help but think that the real reason that people is mad is because as good or as popular as PS games can be, they weren't made for them.   

Ironically the two PS games with the biggest launch on pc are the perfect example of what the broadest audience actually wants.

Helldivers 2: Online-cooperative game

Stellar Blade: Oversexualized female character.  

With those two concepts you can describe some if not most of the most profitable games every year on console, pc and mobile. And that's of course without counting the huge impact that the internet now has in what audiences want. Elden Ring a game that is focused in a specific kind of player now is played by people who don't give a damn about the game itself, all they want is to be part of the cool team who knows about what real games are all about. They don't want to be part of the lame group of people who likes super hero games LOL. 

I have a personal theory that Playstation overprepared for Gen 8. After how Gen 7 exclusive push helped rescue them in PS3, they planned for a new war with the same strategy. Which is fair, and ultimately was the right one as exclusives are what sell and those games on top of the better price and sharing ease was what won Gen 8 over X-Box. However, they overestimated X-Box and put too much into their exclusives, while also having a fanbase that expected that level of work to be increased each time. So they are trapped in a cycle that gets them diminishing returns because they have to push these games harder each time in order to compete with something that never truly manifested.

I honestly don't think it's accurate if you are thinking about the biggest PS5 releases.

Most games still have a PS4 version so they must be costing not much more to make as they are still also PS4 games.

God of War Ragnarok certainly did not cost twice what 2018 did.
Same for Horizon Forbidden West.
Same for Gran Turismo 7.

So which games?

- Final Fantasy 16? Certainly not as well, because 15 was in development hell for years.
- Elden Ring? Maybe, also has a PS4 version tho.
- Sonic Frontiers? Probably, also has a PS4 version but the leap is visible, has more to do with their vision than necessity, IMO, tho.
- Spider Man 2? Don't think so, but maybe.
- Ghost of Yotei? Don't think so either.
- Methaphor: Refantazio? Honestly dunno.
- Assassin's Creed Shadows? Dunno either.
- Death Stranding 2? Maybe, I could see it.
- Helldivers 2? Very likely.
- Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? Very likely.
- Tekken 8? Definitely, because they finally got a good budget, tho.

Most of games I can that have pure PS4 era games to compare I'm not confident to say they costed double than that.

Maybe Activision and EA games?

Most played games in the world are almost all live services or live-service-lite. For most people fun = multi-player and familiarity 

The online coop part is spot on, but gooners bait are not big game sellers... generally. Half of gaming population are of women and a good part are kids and early age teenagers

I don't think this is the case at all. However, I think file size kind of demonstrates why higher quality means possibly even an unproportional amount of extra work: If you double the dimensions of a texture, the perceived quality is probably about twice as high, but the amount of detail is actually four times as much. Now it's probably not four times the work, but you get the point: Doubling the 'quality' takes more than double the detail, which is bound to have an effect on the amount of work required. (For 3D, it's mathematically even worse.)