You mean the Top Gear licence which is by law not exclusive and is entirely PD's fault for not bothering to do anything with it when they were the only one who had it?
Like what?
Bowling?? That was fun for a minute... no, actually it sucked, I hated it and was glad to never have to mess with it again.
I guess MS didn't steal the "Avatards" from the Wii either...
Well, while it is likely that the hardware itself will come pretty cheap, you still can't expect it to be sold for "only" (I use that word advisedly, meaning I understand it ranges from person to person) a few hundred dollars more than PS3. I doubt we'll see the price of PS3 drop below $199 after it's been overtaken, so to get the new system for "only" $399 with brand new hardware and all, just seems too good to be true.
So why did SONY do the same thing with the PS2? It was far more advanced save for the skimpy 4megs of VRam, had a brand new, expensive, dual layer DVD drive, advanced controllers with pressure sensitive buttons, USB, expandability, and sold at launch for the same price as the PS1.
The reason the PS3 was so expensive is because it was loaded up with some pricey proprietary technology. Blu-ray devices were just coming onto the market, and there was an extreme shortage of the blue-violet laser diodes they required. Have you forgotten that the Blu-ray players released at the time cost $1000
or more?
PCs were just getting going with dual-core CPUs. SONY saw that and quadrupled it with an 8-core Cell CPU.
It was equipped with USB 2.0, Wifi, gigabit networking, brand new HDMI interfacing, very fast ram for the time, internal user replaceable SATA hard drives, also new technology.
All of this technology is mature now, while also being quite cheap to manufacture. You could argue that the PS4 could once again be the host to a brand new proprietary optical format, like a Holodisc or something. But developers are going to be the determiners on whether some immense quantum jump in delivery format is necessary, especially when price is concerned. And I can assure you that none of them are going to be making content that rivals a Pixar movie in size and scope. I have no doubt that the playfields defined by games like Resistance and MAG of a mile or more in radius are going to be the norm, and the insane scope of landscapes presented by Fallout 3 will be rare. And I don't believe Fallout 3 needed a proprietary format to deliver it to gamers anyway.
So nothing tells me that PS4 is going to do more than supersize the existing technology of 2006, since neither are gaming PCs today or in the foreseeable future. PCs are always going to come with a minimum price tag because you aren't buying the individual components and manufacturing the systems for them yourself. For instance, you don't buy a GPU, you buy
a graphics card. This item is manufactured on a daughter board with most likely a PCIe interface, and DVi and possibly HDMI outputs. It has its own ram, anywhere from 512megabytes to
two gigabytes. It has support chipsets installed to enable it to communicate with your PC through the OS drivers, and to your monitor or HDTV through the drivers for them burned into eprom chips. All this drives the price up, because everyone in the foodchain has to make a profit to pay for bills and payroll, and the manufacturers need to keep funding R&D to stay competitive.
However, console makers only buy the GPU, and partner with the manufaturer to equip the motherboard with only those components needed to run the thing with whatever game software feeds it. This cuts the cost way down. Remember the
MSI GeForce GT 430 with 1GB DDR3 at Newegg, which is $60, $40 after rebate? The GPU itself, perhaps 40 times as powerful as RSX, may cost as little as $10 for nVidia to manufacture. I forget what exactly I mused the new GPU for PS4 to cost, but it could use a GeForce 400 series GPU and be more than powerful enough to run whatever PS4 game software you feed it, displaying it in 3D on proprietary screens for many years. Still, it's likely to be a very late model GPU in order to get all the sexy graphic functions, but even then, the price per GPU chip could easily be less than $50 at start.
But you did bring up something about current products, so let's:
Look at the high success of the tiny little iphone/pad at those insane prices, the actual hardware can't be more than $150-200, but to end up recovering money from the years of development the price has to be set accordingly
While this is true, Apple doesn't care what the rest of the world does for one thing. For another, these gadgets are freaking loaded with features and technology! 9.7" diagonal Multi-touch high resolution color screen. Dual cameras and microphone. Proprietary CPUs and GPUs. Loads of ram. 3G connectivity with carriers such as AT&T and Verizon. Digital compass and optional GPS... you know, the kitchen sink kinds of things. These are tablet computers with their own displays. The price begins at $499 though, hardly an arm and a leg when the iPhones were launched beginning at $600.
Instead, let's compare with something more pertinent to consumer gaming.
PS Vita. Soon to be released in less than three months in the West. Loaded with features, has a proprietary high resolution touch display, and with a touch pad on the back of the unit. Proprietary CPU, GPU, and quite a bit of memory. Wifi and optional 3G connectivity with AT&T... you know, loaded with goodies and features. The price?
$249 US for the standard model, $299 for the 3G model. And what was the price of the PSP at launch in America? $249.
So this is my basis of proposing the price of PS4 at a much more reasonable cost of $349-399, than the crazy $1200 prices some people here insist are likely, and would do nothing but kill the thing before it even launched.
Now, about GT6 content. I really don't think that there is any secret virtual car vault or hidden track locations in Polyphony. It's only been a year, so unless Kaz found an extra hundred modelers, I think they're plunking along as best they can, though at this point, I don't think they could have modeled more than 100 cars and a few tracks, perhaps 6 or 8. And we've got some of those cars and two tracks already.
What Kaz has up his sleeve is anyone's guess, but car wise, I expect nothing but Premium level content. I'm anticipating some extra work in case of a solid, well designed damage implementation remotely like Forza's, as well as Race Mod and Liveries for all cars, but those I expect to be minor issues compared to the proper rendering of the cars. Some time can be saved by remodeling a number of Standards, and there's a remote possibility that these re-models will be sub-Premium in some ways, though I think this is highly unlikely considering the bad reaction to the two car classes in GT5. Track wise, they can port in all the track models from all the previous games and fix them up to near-Premium level, and they should be much better received by the fans and critics, and would save time to boot and give us more to race on. But I expect the focus to be on new tracks for the most part, with most of them being real world locations, or in a few cases, easily identifiable fantasy versions.
However, I'm sticking with my prediction of GT6 on PS4 with all the bells and whistles and features we've been asking for, give or take, with a few of Kaz's own dream inclusions. If it lands in late 2014, I expect 500-600 cars, 60-80 locations, and all kinds of things to do. If 2013, subtract 100 cars and 10 tracks. Updated track count to accommodate remodeled classic tracks returning.
And other things would be nice too, like individual weather and wind conditions that vary, track puddling that evaporates at realistic rates after rain, etc. I'm with the sim guys who want real life physics and racing rules. A race field of 32 cars would make just about everyone crazy happy, but it remains to be seen just what PS4 is going to be able to handle. Even the most expensive gaming PCs haven't seen this kind of thing yet, though rFactor 2 may bring all this to the testing table. I'm still curious if that's going to be a must-have racer, and if it has anything like this.
. The FM game was improved throughout with updates and tweaks and new features consistent throughout the game. It's not perfect but it's consistent, plays well, sounds awesome, looks gorgeous and is simply fun anywhere you are playing within the game. 
