Short answers, pulled from the story.
The PlayStation 4 was officially announced at the PlayStation Meeting 2013 in New York City on the 20th of February 2013. This announcement followed the distribution of development kits known as Orbis to developers starting in 2012.
Sony announced a lower price point of 399 dollars for the PlayStation 4 while Microsoft set the Xbox One price at 499 dollars in North America. This pricing strategy positioned the PlayStation 4 as the consumer-friendly option during the eighth generation of consoles.
The PlayStation 4 sold over 106 million units by the 31st of December 2019. This sales figure made it the second best-selling video game console of all time behind only the PlayStation 2.
Sony released the PlayStation 4 Pro and the PlayStation 4 Slim on the 15th of September 2016. The Pro model featured an upgraded GPU with 4.2 teraflops of processing power to support 4K gameplay.
Sony discontinued production in Japan of all but the 500 gigabyte Slim model of the PlayStation 4 on the 5th of January 2021. The company continued to produce the console in western markets and as of 2025 to offset PlayStation 5 shortages.