Yes. Said it before say it again. A consile you are getting minimum 6-7 years of entertainment. A smart phone which many upgrade every year or two are well over 1k. If they make a powerful launch console id have no problem with 800.
If it was a solid upgrade, I'd bite. But if not, I wont.
I agree with what you say, but console have a very decades long stodgy image to them from gamers. Even just getting gamers to break past the $400 barrier was a chore. Consoles were regularly priced around $200 way back, trended up to $300-400 during the 360/PS3 days (excluding the first few PS3 years of sky high prices), Xbox One/PS4 were $400 (excluding kinect version at $500). Now PS5/X are $500 (excluding the discless PS5 edition).
Have things trended up? Ya.
But small potatoes vs other gadgets. Even just a $100 console price hike is like the apocalypse. Yet, the same person probably has no problem spending it on better TVs, phones, fancy kitchen appliances etc.... If $100 is such a make or breaker, just dont eat fast food or Starbucks for a month and there's the $100.
I just saw buddies on the weekend at a pub and spent $40. All I got to do is dont pub it 2-3 times over a 7 year console generation and there's the $100.