That would be good for gamers but bad for Sony.  Sony is a company in need of money.

I really think Sony's nowhere near a position where they could afford such a move.

Its not worth it. Even demand was massive, sony could only realistically  produce 12m ps4's for its first 12months. They could sell 10m year one simply by providing a great launch line up and features at $399.

The reality is that loss leading in itself isn't a bad strategy. Anyone claiming otherwise doesn't know too terribly much about this industry. Like so many strategies however it is contingent upon certain scenarios playing out, and that any company that uses such a strategy can sustain the initial losses to reap the greater profits later that the strategy if performed well will provide. Selling more consoles sooner in a generation. Actually increases the profits that can be gained from each console sold.

Neither Sony or Microsoft were foolish to employ the model. It made Microsoft more money from the console generation. Then if they had sold their console at a price that was at parity with production costs. The reason that Sony lost money is not, because they were following the model, but that they were forced to abandon the model. When they misjudged the price that the market could tolerate. Had Sony been in a position to maintain its retail price points. Within a few years if would have been able to have balanced the ledger, and would have then been in a position to start making serious profits off of their hardware.

Further more their problem went beyond over estimating consumer demand. They under estimated their competition. Nintendo ended up eating up so much of their market share, and Microsoft didn't just prove to be a force to be reckoned with, but a rival that kept Sony on a perpetual defensive. They never really let Sony actually profit from its hardware. Every time Sony got to a point where they could start making money off its hardware. Microsoft would either lower its retail prices to force Sony to do the same, or released technology that Sony was obliged to answer to.

That all said the loss leading strategy while very much available to Microsoft, and I have no doubt that they will probably decide to employ it again. Seeing as it offers them a win/win scenario. If Sony doesn't respond then Microsoft gets to claim hardware superiority. If Sony obliges it increases damage to the company in the short term. Leaving them substantially weaker in the long term.

In my opinion the loss lead strategy just isn't available to Sony. The company doesn't have the available liquid assets to fund such a strategy adequately, or the will to absorb the severe short term losses. Global market conditions are uncertain. So Sony cannot leverage a certainty of a profit somewhere against intentional losses elsewhere. Lastly the competition has exploited the strategy effectively to their benefit, and to Sony's severe detriment. Sony can ill afford a price war with Microsoft, because they wouldn't just lose that war, but would devastate their core financials. Sony is running dangerously close to a parity between debt and equity.

It isn't that Sony can just lose money on gaming, but that compounded by losses is so many of their other divisions could quite literally break Sony's back. Especially when they aren't ensured a return on investment for their assets. If Sony fails with their new hardware. As long as they manufactured at a profit they still have options. I really don't put any stock in the rumors of a really powerful machine. I think the reason that Sony bought the game streaming service is so they wouldn't have to suffer any big losses on hardware out of the box.

They could create more modest hardware that could be sold at a profit, and the streaming service could redress any hardware inadequacies. It isn't a perfect strategy by any means, because it has obvious limitations. To do with infrastructure, outages, and the obvious lack of access in so many places in the world, but it can get them into twenty million homes with relative ease, and as global infrastructure improves they can move into markets that open up.

Does the word "bankrupcy" exist in this imaginary universe? 

It all depends on the outcome of tomorrow....

There's a reason why this meeting is being called; to pitch the idea to investors. If they think that next gen is going to be a waste of time, or that Sony cannot recover to a point of a decent return on their investment, then they wont be getting any investor money. This will give them enough time between now and E3 to calculate their price based on market and investor speculation.

then Sony will not have learned a thing.

It's a double-edged sword:

-Sony either takes 200$ loss but get ALOT more sales (if they sale at 300$), but more hardware means more software sales and more PS+, so they could profit in the long term.

-Or they take little to no loss at, lets say 530$, but this price point will not drive the sales (especially since PS3 will be much cheaper anyway) and might hurt them with low software sales and little 3rd party support, while MS and Nintendo take the lead.

well that's not precisely true.  They would have learned not to price the thing at $600.  However if they made a console that was $500 to manufacture they would probably charge $450 or $400 for it.

Not gonna happen. No way is Kaz Harai going to allow a $200 bath on PS4's at launch.