There a lot of issues with PS4 and PS4 Pro in the past like...
- PS4 Pro not performing good or missing something (one or more modes not performing good or missing something)
- PS4 not performing good or missing something (one or more modes not performing good or missing something)
You can count on hand the games that performance and had nothing missing in both PS4 and PS4 both and all their modes.
Plus the issues that come after that.
You try to fix the PS4 Pro issue and the PS4 version becomes bad or vice-versa.
Or you try to fix a mode and the other mode that played well before become fucked.
In a ideal world for each mid-gen refresh and mode added to the game you probably need to double the budget/time for development (of these modes), QA and test but that doesn't happen... in most cases the budget/time continue the same and you will be a happy developer if you have a % addicional budget/time for that.
So the industry has a big issue... they want more modes and hardware combination but don't want to invest more money and time to make this happen.
When devs had to work in a single hardware and mode it was way easier for them and games were released better than today.
So yes for me that doesn't care for mid-gen upgrades or several differnet modes it was a big harm in gaming life.
And I'm sure there are others players (maybe the marjority) that doesn't care about that too... just want to reach home hit a button and have the game playing without options.
IMO giving options goes against everything a console was suppose to be.
Consoles is now a PC and not a console anymore and with that all the harm, issues, hurt existed on PC that make players choose console even knowing it was not powerful as a high-end PC... all these are not in console space and that is sad.
And I can say the same for Gamepass? Publishers / Developers will cut more and more the budget / time to develop games due Gamepass model and we will have the typical games with Gamepass quality... subpar that makes some Xbots happy
For me console should focus in what matter... a simple exprience equal to everybody... you just turn on and play without need to choose... without harm with different hardware and modes.
But I'm old and already talked about that in PS4 gen where that started.
Remember that Sony promissed an even playfield with PS4 Pro where it will have the same framerate than base PS4... well the framerate was all random and variated... the very promise to sell PS4 Pro failed miserably.
BTW the market for PS4 Pro was not that big either... it was (by own Sony data) like 25% of the sales... one in each four PS4 sold was a Pro.