Honestly, I think $700 is fine considering the regular is $500.
The big problem I have with it is the fact that it's a mid-gen console refresh when it's not really needed. This generation has been the weakest in my life time and there aren't any games begging for upgrades. It's $700 for a marginal upgrade only for the PS6 to come out in another 3-4 years. It's a bad trend that Sony has put force as a way to milk more money out of consumers. These are consoles - not PCs.
Also, they should absolutely be including the disc drive and vertical stand at $700. I think leaving the disc drive out is purposeful to shift consumers away from physical media.
I guess I don't know what that means. Weakest of your lifetime? I think people's expectations/understanding is skewed.
Gaming up until the PS3 generation capped out at 480p... We got 1080p with the PS3 but it was really rough. Largely games were 30 fps at 1080p and lower...
The PS4 was still largely 1080p30.
The PS5 can take a PS4 game and 2.25x the resolution and double the framerate... this is all in one generation.... The PS5 Pro gets us to double the framerate and double the resolution with additional IQ... That's really never happened in a generation since the PS3.
When it comes to PC, since the advent of high-powered GPUs, we haven't seen a major swing back towards console like the PS5 Pro. PCs are so out of whack more expensive than consoles right now for the same delivery.
I think you're guilty of what a lot of people are guilty of when they look at the visuals of fidelity mode vs PS5 Pro but ignore that one is at 30 fps and the other is at 60 fps. And what you're largely doing is comparing previous generations, when those games ALSO ran at 30 fps in most cases.
You say there aren't any games begging for upgrades, but that's hardly true and its the reason why basically every major AAA Microsoft game has been shooting for 30 fps recently: Hellblade 2 and Starfield. It's why Wukong doesn't play at 60 fps and why they're probably struggling with it on Series S. More and more games are pushing the resolution lower and lower on what are now the base consoles and the only answer to get these running is variable resolutions and poor FSR implementation.
Enjoy playing games at 30 fps for the next 4 years, especially with muddier resolutions.
Also 70% of their software sales last year were digital. You think its nefarious, but they're reading the tea leaves. That digital number rises annually. Consumers buy digitally, whether you're a part of that or not and you still have the option to buy a disc drive if you want. Somehow you want Sony to eat the cost of the drive the most people don't even use, to your personal benefit...
I think the current price will prove to be acceptable to many people, once those sales have been exhausted they will probably adjust the price to capture the next batch of people that didn't think it was acceptable, as long as they are not taking a loss.
I don't see a price drop until after GTA6, unless Microsoft drops the price of the XSX and sees GTA6 gains as a result.