I love my wii u, It has games that I absolutely love and play the hell out of. I seriously love everything about the console and for me personally the game library is killing the other two both with current titles and with anticipated titles, but in regards to the topic, I definitely think they expected the ps4 to have a higher price tag.
Sony did absolutely everything right leading up to the launch in the west. They courted devs with a straight forward easy to develop for system, they didn't comment on DRM at all and let MS shoot themselves in the foot, they hyped their indie support (even though very similar support was already being offered on wii u), they promoted third party titles heavily, they one upped everyone in having the most powerful console on the market, they have a clear and concise message and target market (its a non complicated, powerful gaming system designed "for the players"), and they offered it at a reasonable price right in between the other two consoles. Seriously, they did everything right and are enjoying the spoils of that right now. It might not have the batshyt crazy wide spread appeal of the wii launch but this was seriously just perfectly executed and whoever was in charge of this launch deserves a standing ovation.
Like I said, im really addicted to the wii u right now and ps4 doesn't have the games that appeal to me personally, which is crazy cause ps3 was my main last gen, (I'm really personally disappointed in the lack of Japanese devs, and i also hate what happened to Ratchet and Clank last gen) but you gotta be crazy to say that they didn't do the damn thing with this launch