Over a million PS5 and Series X consoles have been sold already. Money can definitely be made off next gen right now.
Holding back games is only going to slow down the transition from last gen to current. It would make more sense especially for new IP to release now to build a base before bigger games start to be released for the consoles because people on next gen are desperate right now to play next gen games.
When returnal comes out and if it reviews well, I would not be surprised to see that game sell well because of this drought.
The PS5 should be somewhere in the general area of 7 million units by now, but we'll get an exact figure on April 28th when Sony goes their fiscal report.
No one's holding back updates or games. Companies are dealing with the fallout of having to switch to a work from home model which has generally slowed down production across the entire industry greatly. That means they have to prioritize what resources they do have to try and finish certain projects within a reasonable time. If they have to sacrifice a next gen update to an old game so they can get more people working on their next big project then they'll probably do that.
Some companies are able to cope better than others under these conditions so we may see some be more productive than others and release more updates and games. It doesn't mean that those other companies don't want to be releasing updates and games, they just have to deal with the circumstances that everyone finds themselves in right now.
Another reason companies would be hesitant to rush out a game just to get it on the market early is what happened with Cyberpunk. That game needed several more months in dev but they pushed it out early and it crashed hard. No doubt everyone else in the industry took a look at that and took it as a valuable lesson to not rush a game to launch.
Just speaking personally I've been happy with the updates and new games I've had access to play on my PS5. Demon's Souls Remake and Miles Morales were great launch games, and Astro's Playroom was a gem. I've been playing Destiny 2 with its next gen update and absolutely love it. Played Ratchet & Clank 2016 with its 60 FPS patch and have Returnal to play next week. Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart will be available to play in June and we'll see how the rest of their lineup looks when Sony does their big Summer event.
As gamers we of course want shiny new things to play on our expensive new boxes, but we can also take a moment to appreciate the circumstances of what's going on and be understanding of why we may have to wait a bit longer for our games. In the meantime many of us no doubt have massive backlogs to go through. We'll have a far better idea of how things are shaping up for the rest of the year and beyond in a couple months.
