It's true over the whole population - it's known that the hardware is discounted. You can play the price game of course, just like you can buy discounted steam keys or wait for sales, but on average people don't seem to do that.
The hardware is discounted at launch. For the PS4 and PS5 the consoles have sold at a loss for less than a year.
The cost of new releases on steam or the epic store is very close to the cost of a new release on console, so if you are jumping on new releases straight away the savings are very very slim
