Thinking about Starcraft Dominion, it will likely be released on PS and Xbox too to get to the largest market. I’m wondering if Sony can/will force them to release on PS6 only and not the PS5? PS6 will probably be expensive (ramageddon) and not sell well, and Blizzard will simply want the largest audience. In the past you kinda needed one console generation or the other* but given the whole situation of both gaming and hardware costs, I see uhh console generations and game settings all blending together to put it that way. (*I’m aware many games released on two generations or downscaled for nintendo. It’s often said but I think we’re at a turning point of what we need. How big is the market for 4k? etc.)
Could they? Sure, they hold the keys to the kingdom and can block the release of any title for any reason. And eventually Sony is going to say that PS4 is done, no more PS4 games, and eventually they will also do so for PS5, 6, 7…
But I don’t think it makes any sense for them to do so prematurely. Cross-gen releases are good for them because the side-by-side comparison helps demonstrate the power of the new hardware. Upgrade paths help keep consumers locked into the ecosystem, even if they buy the last-gen version now they’ll have an incentive to buy better hardware to play it on later. And probably most importantly, it’s just not a good idea to burn bridges with their business partners by being too controlling.
The fact that we’re still seeing PS4 games released today tells me that long cross-generation transition periods will remain the norm.