Selling a model with a disc drive at 100$ more is just more profitable for them.
It's not backwards, it's what they have done so far. Piloting demand towards the most profitable product using a planned production mix.
Why they should give up on that?
The result is considerably lower hardware profitability.
I think I misread your earlier post, we're basically in agreement.
They sell the disc sku for $100 more, but the disc drive is obviously worth nowhere near $100, so there's lots of profit there. I agree with you.
BUT in reality, there's actually a smaller loss. The Digital only machine certainly launched at a bigger loss. That's what I meant when I said that you had it backwards - I think that it's still possible that Sony make a loss on the current Digital SKU, so they're not making a great profit on the disc version, they make a loss on the digital version.
I think the new SKU is, as is widely accepted, is about moving PS5 manufacturing to a lower cost. The machine is already selling well, but they can get it into more price sensitive hands including in countries where the PS5 production costs make it difficult to sell, if they can get the cost down significantly. So, that's why they have redesigned the whole system.
If they can get the new digital machine price down to below the current digital SKU price then what they can do is make the machine available to more people because it's cheaper, but they can also sell the disc drive for an extra fee that effectively makes the total price comparable to what the disc edition is now. So, big savings on hardware, savings on SKU management, opportunity to announce a price cut, opportunity to do deals on hardware bundling etc. etc.