Well yeah, Sony has fostered good will for the next generation based on their first-party output this gen even more so than they did last gen. Like it's astounding. Just goes to show, even with all these various concerns about Sony's decision making on consumer policies and features missing from their console, what matters most is the primary differentiator. You plant the seeds of Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon and Death Stranding and it seals the deal for sequels on next-gen hardware that people will buy it to play.
Even with all the deserved good will Xbox has gained this gen, and strives they've made to not repeat the same mistakes that cost them this generation, it just puts them back on the starting line to make a solid impression. It's all intentional of course but with Xbox exclusives being on PC and them not even having next-gen exclusives for the first few years there's not much reason for the same excitement to follow through to a new console like there is a new PlayStation.
Have to give credit to MS though, they made PS5 a lot better by using BC as a big selling point. Now Sony sees the importrance.
It was a good PR angle for Microsoft and good for consumers, but I don't think you can say it inspired Sony to "see the light" given the BC research and patents filed by Cerny, and what I've always seen as an act of common sense considering how important digital sales have become, how easy it would be to sell PS4 content to PS5 players, how much money is made from GaaS audiences that they'll not want to cut off momentum for, and also not sacrificing all the strides they've made with PSVR - where not having BC for that would be resetting their competitive advantage to zero.
