I think everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over nothing.
All we are seeing is this latest cash grab from MS and Sony. There is a "new" thing (relatively new, seeing as the standard is still 1080p...and still is not even met most of the time) out now called 4K and they have a cheap way to make something new with 90% of the same parts/manufacturing process (which they likely still have a lot of) as the old thing, and sell it at twice the price to people.
Why? Because that is how bandwagons work. After years of failing to deliver on 1080p promises, on years of us not learning from their broken promises, I expect to see a lot of chumps buying into this latest craze that is still unproven. VR? 4K? Yeah, good luck with that on your current-plus-one-half generation console. Not at that price...
This is a mid-generation anomaly, that is all. Though I admit it is fun to speculate.
Honestly, imo, the only way for the thing everyone thinks is going to happen is for MS and Sony to go to some sort of hardware subscriber model where you pay like 300 dollars a year to lease a console on the guarentee that it can play the latest and greatest at the best resolution with the highest visuals; new hardware comes out, you send it in for your quarterly checkup and it comes back a week later all upgraded. And that is incredibly unrealistic. More likely they will just migrate more towards the PC model and let consumers do it themselves (and at that point, why use consoles at all?)
YOu're also missing a key point: how many consoles will they sell of PS5 versus PS4 Pro? Not everyone is going to get a PS4 Pro. EVERYONE (everyone that plays Playstation, at least) will get a PS5. People will wait in the cold, in lines, fight eachother....for a PS5. A PS4 Pro is not a big deal. Sony and MS would not miss out on a marketing/sales opportunity like that.
Personally I still really like the idea of static, fixed generations. Stacking upon each-other every few years. I'd rather they not just blur into eachother.
It's not really an anomaly, it's just a new way for console manufacturers to approach the issue of ever advancing electronic hardware and how to make more money from it. The PS4 Pro can't do native 4k nor can it do faux K with 60fps (actually 1080/60 looks it may be problematic in some cases) but Sony's next console (PS4 Ultra!) will do native 4k and may even manage 4k/60fps. At the point where console are becoming capable of 4k/60, PC gamers will be moving on to 8k displays and so the chase will continue.
If these "mid-gen" refreshes are financially successful then expect them to continue.
Other things console gamers should be getting ready for are full digital (PC is almost there already) and then beyond that, online streaming services only. It's far cheaper to create a set top box that can take an internet connection and a couple of controllers than a full hardware suite in a console.
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