correct me if i'm wrong but i think the 10 million was for the fiscal year,.. so ending in march.You are wrong! Articles reporting on the issue kept mixing it up but the original source (Bloomberg) specified 5 million produced by end of september and 10 million by end of december.
mayhaps you are right about the digital version thing. i'd suspect not. i agree it's not a large turn around time on that but it just seems unlikely to me that it came into existence since the beginning of this year. psp had a cartridge-less version. xbox one had a disc-less version. digital is clearly making huge strides this generation. if they weren't talking about a disc-less version years ago something is really wrong with sony. i think the surprise is just more that sony is much, much better at keeping secrets then ms.
You're right they'd definitely have been considering it for a long time but it could be that they were thinking not to do a discless version or at least not at launch, then the covid situation tipped them over the edge and made them decide to do it for launch. They need to capitalise on the uptick in the industry with a more accessible price point.
Anyway, back on price that $450 BOM leak we got from Bloomberg seemed very reliable with Zhuge backing it up as well and prices seem to have gone down since then. Given that, $550+ would be selling at a profit and we know Sony will take a loss, so that's not happening. If the BOM leak is right, $550/$500 is the upper bound for both editions and even that would be a profit on HW for Sony.