It wasn't worse from what I remember.

Even if working people could afford it, they might have other priorities.

If Sony is fine with another very slow launch and a series of doom and gloom articles for a year or two then I guess they would be fine.

Personally, I would wait for a price cut or two, if PS4 released at 499$, pretty much like I did with the PS3 actually.

How many people actually pay the full price of their phone upfront? Most people go with 3 year plans or "tabs" where the phone is free or greatly reduced in price so they don't see the real cost of the device since it's part of their monthly fees.

I can't see them being able to charge anything above $400 to be honest.

They'd better not be.

There would have to be some phenomenal new tech and an amazing lineup to come anywhere near justifying a price above $400. Even then, I doubt it would catch on right away, given Sony's shit reputation for console launches now. The years it took for PS3 sales to pick up, and the Vita's horrendous showing, is proof positive that no one outside of the most hardcore acolytes trusts Sony to produce a product worth a high asking price.

They should take note of how much better PS3 sales got after prices came down, and go from there.

Don´t forget the premium Wii U costs 350€ and everybody was like: "Well thats an acceptable price" but the Wii U has almost 7 years old Hardware, and if the PS4 comes with new great tech then I think they could justify to charge 500€ for let´s say an Uncharted or Gran Tourismo Bundle

And what of it?

To begin with, it's not like there's some crazy new graphics paradigm they can use to show how much more powerful the system is in the first place. All three consoles are going to have 1080p graphics capabilities, and most gamers aren't going to lose sleep over the intracacies of shader effects and tesselation or whatever in that context. If old tech was seriously an issue, then everybody would've stopped giving a shit about the current generation a while ago.

Plus I fully expect Sony to add some big gimmicky hook they can point to in light of the Wii U's tablet and whatever Microsoft does with Kinect and SmartGlass. I don't think any of the hardware companies feels safe with just putting out a more powerful version of what we've got now.

Well there are rumours that Sony is working on AR glases for the PS 4. The reason why people are still caring about PS360 is because those are the actual consoles. A lot people are console gamers only. And for now it is impossible to say how big the graphical jump from this gen to the next will be. Just look at the first games that released on current gen consoles and compare to this years powerhouses. The difference is huge. But you are right graphical power won´t be the major selling of the next gen. I am sure Sony and Microsoft will add something to increase the expirience

499 is too much

As far as I remember, it wasn't. There were a lot of bitching about it's price, at least it wasn't universally acknowledged as "acceptable". Speaking about Europe, though Wii U is generally ok for now, Europe showed some lackluster sales. And I'm not sure what's so "7 years old" about it? I looked over here (since there're no official specs) and don't see anything that old, it's certainly not an cutting edge, a very "value" kind of hardware design.

Being technologically advanced is already a hardly marketable material today for mass market, nobody cares. Perceived customer value for a given product is not just about the tech inside, Sony won't be able to justify 500 euro pricetag whatever hardware they got (and judging by the rumors, nothing really pricey in there), thus 500 euros is a suicide.