Everyone quoting $399 don't care about the disk drive all of a sudden? What happened to muh series S is going to fail with no drive crowd?
I think we know by now SonyGAF has zero intellectual honesty or consistency. It's all a PR game for fan boy warriorz who wish they were on the Sony payroll.
That said, the $400 price point is a good one for the digital edition. Sony's hand was forced by the $300 Series X. Both companies are going to lose money on the digital consoles. Sony doesn't have the cash reserves for a battle of attrition but they do have significantly better global mindshare. So both companies are going with the "make money on the razor blades" model as should be expected.
This should be interesting to see how it plays out. We'll get to see how much price matters vs perceived value. It's clear the better hardware value at the low end is the digital PS5. But will the Series S $100 lower price plus Game Pass make up for it? Xbox may consider a quick price drop to $249 and/or include some value add stuff like digital game bundles and/or 12-month Game Pass subs (if not at launch then soon after).
The value proposition is reversed at the top end with Series X holding the hardware advantage at the same price and Sony offering the promise of more/better exclusives in later months. The launch window will show us if a more powerful Xbox at the same price can blunt the projected Playstation advantage. I suspect PS5 will maintain a similar hardware sales lead this gen of 2:1, but it's going to play out a little differently as it's pretty clear MS's strategy depends far less on hardware sales to hit profit targets.
From a consumer standpoint this played out well. MS forced Sony to go with a lower $400 price point (that they are most likely losing money on per unit). And gamers have two good options at a cheap entry point.
Personally, I'd go with PS5 digital for "only" $100 more. But we have to remember that for many families - especially in the middle of a protracted pandemic depression - they may not be able to budget that extra $100 so the Series S wins for that subset.
I'll be picking up both $500 consoles and calling it a day...until maybe picking up a presumed "special edition" of the S. For me the 512gb drive is too small but release a 1tb version and I'll put one in my spare bedroom.
I've been thinking I might wait for a slim redesign of the PS5 as that thing is ginormous with an ugly as sin color scheme (and I keep going back n forth on whether or not I like the design...sometimes I appreciate the design risk, other times it just looks like a tacky piece of Chinese garbage). Ultimately, I don't know if I can resist any new launch console. If Sony surprises us with a black variant I'm 100% in.