I remember the company I was at having to shell out $20k for the PSP emulator back when it was a thing. It was a dedicated computer with a tethered cable connecting to a PSP where the optical drive would normally be located. After that experience, I just assumed that was SOP for companies with pre-release units like that.
There's a long vetting process which all studios must undergo in order to get approval to develop on all major consoles. Notice that I use the word: "studios" and this is simply because if you want to self-publish a game you must form an LLC or you won't get anywhere in the application process. (This is where publishers comes in really handy as they already have contacts inside the big 3 and can speed up the entire process.)
If your studio and game project are approved you will receive the game engine licenses of your choice (Unity, Unreal, Game Maker and in some cases special builds which differ from the ones everyone can download online) and will have the opportunity to take a dev kit out on loan. The kits always have to go back at some point and you have to sign a bunch of NDA's basically agreeing that you will never post pics online or allow anyone outside of your studio access to them.
With Microsoft you can actually use any retail Xbox as a dev kit:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-apps/devk...
One of Sony's weird requirements is that you must have a static IP address in order to access their dev portal. And I believe that Nintendo actually charges money for their dev kits, but it's been a while since I checked so I don't know if that's still the case.
If the simulator is as good as the iOS' simulators then you must test your app in a device or you will be flooded with bug reports at launch day. As noted elsewhere, Apple is setting up labs in some cities, everyone else needs to buy the device or cross fingers and hope for the best.
BTW, Android is not as bad because there are emulators, not just simulators (that is my understanding for the disparity).
