For a dedicated handheld, it is highest cost and high end......since it is actually the highest priced gaming handheld on the market. 3DS is priced appropriately and yes im gonna say it.....cell phones are becoming the place for on the go gaming. Cell phones can be anywhere from $0- $150 for 3 year contracts.

"Sony can't afford to take PS3 scale losses". Well offcourse maybe not on that scale, but I think Sony is still prepared to sell it at a loss and brag about the 10 year plan so it will be justified.

Do the PS4 rumors say the specs are better then the 720 rumored specs?

What are you talking about? PSV isn't cheap, but it isn't expensive either. It launched at the same price as the 3DS and the PSP.

So what did Sony do with Vita? They launched it at an affordable price and competitively with the portable market leader, the 3DS. Nintendo knew they couldn't compete so they did that panic $80 price cut. Now Sony can't compete.

With PS4 there is no way Sony will price it at $499(even the premium model). Sony will price the PS4 at a competitive price. They wilil manufacture a $500 system and sell it at $400. The technology in the console is "off-the shelf" so the console itself would be profitable within 2 years. 

The ones that are comparable to the PSV go for much higher than that, even with a contract.

PSV is the most expensive dedicated gaming handheld on the market.

If it was "affordable" it would sell. So not buying that reasoning. Nintendo told us that $250 is a no-buy zone with consumers for handhelds. Nintendo charged that because they were greedy, Sony fully planned Vita to be $250.

Off the shelf or not, Sony is aiming the PS4 to be more expensive then Xbox and WiiU. That much I can guarantee. This time, Sony is still gonna loose money, but on a lesser scale then PS3. They basically only half-learned their lesson, which is to stick to the PS2 business model.

And I doubt those sell anywhere close the the 0-150 phones. Point being......Vita is high end compared to its competition: 3DS and common smartphones. 

The Ps2 Business model was that nintendos console at the time was aimed at kids and had a handle and that microsoft had no real clue of how to get started into the gaming business, neither of these things are possible anymore.

PS2 business model = Sell weak/moderate powerful hardware at a low, mass market price.

Even the Gamecube had more power then PS2. But this gen, WiiU will have the title as cheapest and most competetively priced.

when the playstation 2 launched it was by no means weak hardware, sure the gamecube and the xbox were more powerful than it, but they came out almost 2 years after the playstation 2 launched, when it did the only other system on the market was the dreamcast and it absolutely blew that out of the water in terms of power and packing what became a load of households first Dvd player.

Relative to the 3DS is it expensive, but the 3DS is a very cheap piece of technology. Now, I'm guessing you're thinking at this point that it should always be discussed/assessed etc. in relation to the 3DS because that's it's only direct competitor. And you would sort of be right when strictly comparing the two, but you weren't strictly comparing the two, you were saying the costs associated with the PSV are indicative of the PS4 being expensive.

Translating that Vita hardware strategy into PS4's strategy gets you a powerful home console, though not extravagently so, that uses cheap components (compared to something like the PS3), and it takes a loss, but not a big one... similar to the PS2 or Xbox 360. And remember, the Wii U, like the 3DS will likely be cheap in comparison, but the next Xbox won't.

So when you say the PSV is evidence of Sony's strategy still being "highest cost and highest end" , you're wrong in the context of handhelds, and extra wrong in the context of PS4 and it's competitors. 

Do the PS4 rumors say the specs are better then the 720 rumored specs? No.

I dont count the Dreamcast. Personally you gotta finish a gen to be compared at all. On that note, let me amend my definition.

PS2 business model = Sell weak/moderate powerful hardware at a low, mass market price. Launch first for head start on competition and 3rd parties.

Nintendo is the new Sony.