*Spin off* Bill of Materials and Cost/Price Reductions of Current Consoles

AlStrong said:
Random thoughts:

How about the cost of the chassis? By that I refer to the PS3's seemingly complex design, just by looking at it. The Xbox 360 on the other hand, is pretty much...well... a box.
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Its just all injection molded plastic pieces isn't it?

AlStrong said:
And the built-in wireless of the PS3 must cost something significant too, perhaps not on the same scale as the processors, but it is the difference between including one and not including one.
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Prolly in the range of $5 or less considering I've bought Laptop miniPCI wireless NIC's for $10. (edit I mean you can consider that even the DS has wireless built in which always makes you wonder why for $20 more than the Microsoft Wireless Dongle you can get a DS)
 
Carl B said:
A cost that will obviously come down going forward, but I think 'a few dollars' is off the mark in scope.
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Have you seen any numbers?
What is your suggestion, a $10 difference?

The control mechanics of the pick-up probably need slightly higher precision, but it´s not required to handle extreme disk speeds. The volumes are already pretty high, production problems should be sorted out by now.

Keep in mind Sony co-owns some of the manufacturing of blu-ray ODD, so they are not paying any premiums to the manufacturers.
 
Cryect said:
Prolly in the range of $5 or less considering I've bought Laptop miniPCI wireless NIC's for $10.
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I was thinking under $5 for the wireless as well.

Crossbar said:
Have you seen any numbers?
What is your bet, a $10 difference?

The control mechanics of the pick-up probably need slightly higher precision, but it´s not required to handle extreme disk speeds. The volumes are already pretty high, production problems should be sorted out by now.

Keep in mind Sony co-owns some of the manufacturing of blu-ray ODD, so they are not paying any premiums to the manufacturers.
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The cost differentials for the OPU were once estimated at $100+ for the OPU alone, so... I know the PS3 has changed pickups since then, because we've had threads discussing it in the past, but I don't think we're near $10 yet on the differential. If I had to make a random guess, I'd say $25 vs DVD for that aspect. Volumes are up yes, but even vs HD DVD - which otherwise uses the same diodes - BD requires a higher level of precision in its OPUs. There are a couple of people around here that could have some insights into the situation though, and certainly I'd be as interested in their contribution as any. :)
 
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Cryect said:
Prolly in the range of $5 or less considering I've bought Laptop miniPCI wireless NIC's for $10.
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Keep in mind that you pay $10 in retail for a piece of electronics that is likely to have a higher BOM than the wireless of the PS3, since the wireless of the PS3 is just one component soldered onto the motherboard.

I believe the BOM is even less than $5.
 
What about that kick ass internal powersupply. I remember an interview with one of the sony guys really bragging it up. I think the cost has been mentioned as 30 dollars some time last year. It that something that will go down with time or is that more fixed?
 
quest55720 said:
What about that kick ass internal powersupply. I remember an interview with one of the sony guys really bragging it up. I think the cost has been mentioned as 30 dollars some time last year. It that something that will go down with time or is that more fixed?
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You know the 40GB version requires less power so...
 
Blade47167 said:
I thought Halo 3 software sales created the actual profit?
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I seem to recall MS claiming they were no longer losing money on 360 hardware around last August. A quick Google search turned up nothing, however.

one said:
You know the 40GB version requires less power so...
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Is the power supply different, though? The 360 has reduced its power consumption as well, but still uses the original power supply.
 
Interesting, I thought it was only Cell manufactured at 65nm for the 40GB version SKU :eek:

Does anyone else have a source/confirmation that RSX is manufactured at 65nm?
 
The only official information on RSX has been their stated intent to move over to 65nm inclusion within the near future; I don't think there's anything solid to indicate that they have made the move yet.

@Heinrich: In terms of the xbitlabs article, although their extrapolation is fine given certain base facts, I'd say the results are warped due to the reliance on the iSuppli figures as their baseline.
 
Sony and MS ability to cut prices on the console is dependent on how much of a loss they are willing to take.

MS's price cutting strategy for the xbox wasn't financially viable but its was neccessary for the survival of the console.

Any price cutting of the PS3 and the 360 is going to hurt Sony more than MS. Given the available evidence, I find it hard to believe otherwise.

Look at the divisional losses for each company.

MS () represent loss

Q1 2007 (96 million)
Q2 2007 (289 million)
Q3 2007 (315 million)
Q4 2007 (1,199 million) remove the 1.06 billion charge that MS took for future warranty cost and that number falls to (139 million)
Q1 2008 165 million

1.873 billion in losses, remove the one time 1.06 billion charge and that number drops to 813 million in losses.

Sony () represent loss

Q2 2006 (43.5 bln yen)
Q3 2006 (54 bln yen)
Q4 2006 (107.8 bln yen)
Q1 2007 (29 bln yen)
Q2 2007 (96 bln yen)

330.3 bln yen converts to roughly ~2.9 billion USD in losses.

The true losses of the PS3 is covered up by the profit generated from the ~15 million PS2, ~10 million PSP and ~300 million units of PS2 & PSP software sold during these five quarter.

(Disclaimer, I did a bunch of quick and dirty math using Sony financial earnings so I can't gaurantee that this numbers are wholly accurate. Confirmation maybe neccessary.)
 
dobwal said:
(Disclaimer, I did a bunch of quick and dirty math using Sony financial earnings so I can't gaurantee that this numbers are wholly accurate. Confirmation maybe neccessary.)
Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll remember this thread here in terms of PS earnings:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=44962

But anyway, this thread isn't about losses, gains, or what the consumer pays per se... so let's try and keep it focused on the BOM costs themselves, and the topic of cost reduction going forward.
 
Carl B said:
I'm sure you'll remember this thread here in terms of PS earnings:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=44962

But anyway, this thread isn't about losses, gains, or what the consumer pays per se... so let's try and keep it focused on the BOM costs themselves, and the topic of cost reduction going forward.
Click to expand...

The only reason we're talking about BOM costs is because the focus of the topic is PS3/360 pricing going forward.

The past losses are driven by BOM costs. Talking about losses is just as important as BOM cost to the discussion, because the losses are real and the BOM costs are just estimates based on no real or effective way to calculate those costs.
 
Sort of related: does anyone expect MS to cut prices on separately sold hard drives? They're terribly expensive, I've just bought a WD mybook 500GB external drive for a little more than what the 20GB X360 addon costs...
 
Laa-Yosh said:
Sort of related: does anyone expect MS to cut prices on separately sold hard drives? They're terribly expensive, I've just bought a WD mybook 500GB external drive for a little more than what the 20GB X360 addon costs...
Click to expand...

Hopefully soon. The prices on both of the 120 and 20 are absurd. They need to eventually so that Marketplace can move forward.
 
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