i wouldn't buy a $400 console. i had reservations about $249. the tax was the problem. but i'm a cheap bastard anyway lol.

but $249 is my bench mark, and i truly hope PS4(and what ever they call it in JP)won't cost more then $349. i'd even go up to $299 but no further.

I think the price of products goes something like this:

$100 Impulse buy
$200 Almost an impulse buy
$300 Must have long term value
$400 Needs to be a must buy
$500 Hard sell, will need to have both long term value and be a must buy
$600+ Wait for a price drop

Hmm, its a case of profit through hardware sales vs profit through software sales. I don't think 3rd party support will be an issue seeing as 720/ps4 are looking to be even closer in architecture then the 360/ps3.

Having said that, prices continue to increase. The most powerful system of the 6th gen was xbox at 299, but it was sold at a large loss. Assuming its actual cost was 349-399. It means the most expensive system of the 6th was cheaper to produce then the cheapest system of this gen, which is the wii U being sold at a loss at $349. Naturally part of this is inflation. The point I'm trying make is that we'd be extremely lucky to get a system at $399.