From the OP:

"is there any other honorable mentions?

is this about it?

is the 3rd console curse true?"

It was weird to throw the 3DS into the mix against home consoles so the only commonality between these were that they were relatively recent consoles. The OP asked about others so it seems, may not have been familiar with the launches of older consoles.

For context:

U.S. Inflation Rate, $399 in 1995 to 2019

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index, prices in 2019 are 65.38% higher than prices in 1995. The dollar experienced an average inflation rate of 2.12% per year during this period.

In other words, $399 in 1995 is equivalent in purchasing power to $659.86 in 2019, a difference of $260.86 over 24 years.

It's almost like people on here aren't old enough to remember the Sega Saturn launch:

In March 1995, Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske announced that the Saturn would be released in the U.S. on "Saturnday" (Saturday) September 2, 1995.^[47][48] However, Sega of Japan mandated an early launch to give the Saturn an advantage over the PlayStation.^[49] At the first Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles on May 11, 1995, Kalinske gave a keynote presentation in which he revealed the release price of US$399 (including a copy of Virtua Fighter^[50]), and described the features of the console. Kalinske also revealed that, due to "high consumer demand",^[51] Sega had already shipped 30,000 Saturns to Toys "R" Us, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc. for immediate release.^[47] The announcement upset retailers who were not informed of the surprise release, including Best Buy and Walmart;^[24][52][53]KB Toys responded by dropping Sega from its lineup.^[47] Sony subsequently unveiled the retail price for the PlayStation: Sony Computer Entertainment America president Steve Race took the stage, said "$299", and then walked away to applause.^[24][54][55] The Saturn's release in Europe also came before the previously announced North American date, on July 8, 1995, at a price of ₤399.99.^[14] European retailers and press did not have time to promote the system or its games, harming sales.^[56] After the PlayStation's European launch on September 29, it had already outsold the Saturn by a factor of three in the United Kingdom by early November 1995, where it was reported that Sony allocated ₤20 million to market the system during the holiday season compared to Sega's ₤4 million.^[57][58]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn

The boxes will be nearly indistinguishable.. we are approaching the point where consoles will be like cellphones where the specs don’t matter too much and most games will run for all systems with various tweaks. At that point, like the mobile environment, it will be able preference and ecosystems. Game pass and PS Plus are just means to get you to stay with the same ecosystem between generations in order to keep all your games. They same way you stick with android or apple because of all the money you sunk into the store.

My personal guess on specs:

Dual Navi APU 7nm.

Each APU:

8 core/16t(?) 3.2 ghz min - 3.8 max

1 core disabled (for costs) and 1 core reserved for OS.

GPU: 28 ROPs @ 1425mhz for 5.11 TGflops per APU.

4 1GB HBM on each die.

Effective specs of dual APU setup:

12 core (2 reserved for OS, 2 disabled)

10.2TFlops

GPU: 56 ROPs @ 1425mhz for 10.2TFlops.

8GB HBM

16GB GDDR6

Other specs:

eMMC 64GB. Cache & OS.

Larger HDD & Bluray sold separately (Core Model).

Can swap PS4 drive into PS5.

Reasons:

A dual APU setup would allow AMD and Sony to keep costs down. A theoretical Navi APU would be similar to a 2400g. Sony would purchase them at cost. Disabled cores and lower clocks would push the cost below $100 per chip. HBM onboard an APU would make sense and something AMD already does.

This also has the added advantage of preventing memory timing issues and would be the origin of the dedicated GPU rumors due to the HBM/GDDR6 split. Further advantages would be in VR. This allows each GPU to take over rendering and have their own buffer for output. AMDs own API show advantages for games designed around this and Sony would incorporate this into their dev tools. In single screen mode, each GPU would render every other frame.

64GB emmc would allow an onboard cache for the OS and games. Both Bluray and HDD could be added later and be optional. (You would need one or the other in order to play larger games ala the 4GB xbox)

The power, heat, and space requirements would be lessened.

This would also pave the way for a slim revision using AMD v1000 based Navi apu(s) which could also double as a portable device.

$399 core

$549 pro (external Blu-ray/HDD)