1TB is definitely not needed, its just ideal. Most people only buy 5-6 AAA titles per year, although this is probably hightened at launch as people buy games just for the sake of it. By any account you will likely have over a year before you need to start worrying about storage, by which time I doubt you'll still be playing many launch titles, so deciding what to remove won't be too much of a Dilema. Remember that the 120GB-250Gb HDDs in the xbox360 and ps3 came several years after their launch. As is usually the case, both companies are making a loss and every $ counts when its multiplied by millions of sales. They're being a bit stingy but its definitely workable.

Sony has leeway to introduce a $449 model with 1TB HDD if they wanted, but I guess they want to keep that $100 price difference between them and the Xbox One.

Realizing that virtually every heavy gamer is going to upgrade their HDD at some point, I'm not sure why anyone is trying to make this an issue. Actually, I am pretty sure it's because it's intended as a knock on the PS4 by some competing hardware fan.

The factory HDD is fine as is and I'd rather do the upgrade myself later rather than pay more for the PS4 now. And I'm not expecting Sony to foot the bill by offering free upgrades since cost management has been a big issue with the PS4 as it has been with all 8th gen consoles.

Granted, it looks like the full game installs on a lot of the games will be more than their PS3 counterparts (I would expect most to be on par), I've been using 500 GB HDDs in my various PS3s for years without issue and that's with a BD library over 70 games and about the same for PSN DD games, plus quite a few full PS3 retail games that are DD format. I stopped storing movies and videos on the PS3 years ago leaving all HDD space for game installs and full games which made all the difference.

How come Call of Duty is only 32GB if people said that it would be 49GB (since that was written on the box as well)?

that's fine by me and for most normal users of a console
i'll be upgrading as and when needed

Well, that's confirmed what I already suspected: it's time to buy a larger HDD. I did it for the PS3; seems I'll have to do the same for PS4. Never been an issue for my 360 and WiiU -- but, I suppose, no PS+ on those consoles.

Uh with the size of games and the push towards digital 1TB is needed. Trust me. My PC has over 500GB of games for sure on it right now. 

How can you say 1TB is not needed and that I have to worry about my storage in 12 months in one post?
IMO this means it is needed.

I find it pretty funny and ironic that cartridges were abandoned in favor of discs, because cartridges couldn't hold so much data and the games got too big.

Now, two (or three, depending on how you count) generations later, discs have become both too small and too slow for big games, so we need mandatory installs, while cartridges would be both big enough and fast enough to do without. Ergo superior to discs in every way.

I guess it's still the higher cost of a cartridge, but I wish someone would ditch discs in the next gen and revert back to a cartridge based system so we can be rid of this HDD bullsh*t.

And I'm sure your currently playing no more then 2-3 games currently. Meaning the majority of that can comfortably be deleted and reinstalled at a later date or never again if you no longer play it. I'm not saying 500GB is a ton of space given the context, I'm saying its workable.

Need and want are two different things. Having to manage your HDD once or twice a year is not that straining for us to act like 408GB is unacceptable. Of course having the additional space (1TB) to only have to worry about it every 16month is that bit more desirable, but definitely not a requirement/need. Its a luxury, remembering that the majority of owners won't be buying as many games on a yearly basis as a lot of us guys, here on the forums.