Well I think for a lot of customers who think a little about their purchase, it basically puts them at least on a par with where MS currently is with the 360 premium in terms of cost evaluation. Once you thrown in play-and-charge kit and live subscription, you've been pretty much close to the $500. I know I pretty much wrote that off when buying my 360. I don't expect MS to stand still, of course, but far fewer seemed to complain about buying into 360 with those kinds of costs.
Sony has to better communicate their value advantages - even just for those solely interested in gaming. They tried doing this last year with their comparison chart, but they tried too hard there. But they do have very valid points about free online gaming, larger hard disks and so on that ought to speak to a lot of people, be they interested in the other value-adds, like Blu-ray, or not.