I dont think Sony are getting huge margins on PS5's either. But I think they'd like them to be as high as possible, even if it comes at some expense to sales. Otherwise they could absolutely reduce prices if they really wanted to. It's been a classic, proven strategy throughout console history. The Slim is absolutely saving them a decent chunk of money. It was the whole point of the project. It would not have been cheap to redesign all this stuff, but they knew it would be worth it.I get from your post that you believe that Sony and devs are having bigger profitability opportunities than before.
To some extend, yes companies do act against the consumer and find excuses.
But if Sony could increase software and hardware sales to maximize profits like they could in the PS1 and PS2 days I am sure that would have remained their current strategy. But they expect contraction of sales. If that's the result of them keeping margins high as an easy solution, thus making gamers less willing to buy, that's them sabotaging themselves. If that's the result of bigger challenges and changes in the nature of the industry, then it's inevitable
At this point I feel that a lot more are at play than simply Sony and the developers.
The production of software has become more complex.
A lot more companies involved in the production of goods and services are trying to increase profits at the expense of their clients which are other companies.
These added costs or strategy changes will reflect eventually at the final cost or utility that the consumers are paying for, as every company involved is trickling down their added margins on each other until it reach us.
I don't think Sony is getting huge margins from PS5 hardware. The manufacturing process between Slim and PS5 aren't significant. The days when consoles were highly simplified after 3-4 years from launch are gone. From the day Sony couldn't be the proprietary owner of their hardware anymore we saw a trend where the hardware doesn't get significantly simpler and cheaper to produce or sell. Hence there isn't much room to drop prices and attract even more people.
AMD need their profit margins too. That's something Sony didn't have to deal with in the PS1 and PS2 days. Therefore they keep prices higher to cover AMD's revenue
I think there's likely no chance that AMD or any other of their bigger cost suppliers are charging more money today than they were back in early/mid 2020 when they were first ordering final manufacturing parts.
Companies, especially ones that get especially greedy or arrogant, are absolutely not immune from sabotaging themselves with short-term thinking. This isn't some rare thing that we must discount.