The PS3 is the best and cheapest BR player on the market and all the high prices will do is push more people to buy PS3's for the time being. Inevitably, the prices of the standalone players will come down later in the year and they will have to come down below the price of the PS3 soon (i.e in the next 6-12 months) or they will not sell any.
It will be a while before $5 BR films are on the market, but come on how long was it before $5 DVD's were on the market. Actually on a timescale basis, I reckon the cost of BR's is actually cheaper comparatively speaking compared to DVD's at the same timeframe.
In the UK, you can pick up BR's for as cheap as £10 at the moment...and I know for a FACT...it was much much longer with DVD before that happened.
Prediction (June 12th 2017)
Permanent pricedrop for both PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro in October.
PS4 Slim $249 (October 2017)
PS4 Pro $349 (October 2017)
