Gameboy micro costs from g4

[jvd]

Gameboy micro retial 99$ cost 44$

Mac mini 499$ retail vs 283$ cost

Ipod nano 199$ retail vs 103$

Sadly they didn't have the other systems . www.isupply.com is the site that does it

 

[Acert93]

I wish the Micro had MP3 playback standard. That would have made it a killer device on the scale of the iPod IMO. Games + Music + Small FF? $99? W00t!

 

[jvd]

I think you may get your wish . I think in the usa and europe at least they are gonig to pull a ds . Release it at a high price , get any one willing to pay it then a few months down the line drop the price of the unit . I'm thinking 75$ and then 100$ with the playlan (or whatever) bundled in . I'm thinking they launched at 100$ so they could still move out the old gba stock without loosing money

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think you may get your wish .

I'm confused. How do they add it as standard? Is it a plugin device that you think they'll bundle? I think Acert was thinking, like me, it'd be nice if the hardware had MP3 playback as standard without extras, where you can stick in a flash card of music. That'd be a much better concept, with tiny portable gaming and music on a size comparable to iPod.

 

[PC-Engine]

Nice find jvd.

If Nintendo makes that much money on each GBM sold the damn they've already made a buttload of money looking at recent GBM sales.

 

[Guden Oden]

How could the components of a GBA Mini possibly cost $44? The thing uses ANCIENT hardware for chrissakes... The costliest components in that thing surely have to be the battery and the backlit LCD, but they can't cost anywhere near $44 together... Is there additional features in GBA Mini not present in the SP?

 

[jvd]

I believe they said the lcd screen was 15$ . So that leaves 29$ between ram , cpu , battery , pcb costs , shell and other things .

The guy explains that they look at everything all the way down to each transitor and each piece of plastic

 

[see colon]

what about packaging, shipping, customer support, printing manuals and health warnings, and all of the other little things that tack on cost between manufacturing and retail?

Is there additional features in GBA Mini not present in the SP?

kinda backwards... the SP (and classic GBA) has a z80 cpu in it for GBC/GB backwards compatability.

 

[Teasy]

How could the components of a GBA Mini possibly cost $44? The thing uses ANCIENT hardware for chrissakes

We all know that minaturisation costs money (look at PSP's price). The GBA Mini is a few times smaller then the GBA-SP so its going to be more expensive to make.

 

[jvd]

what about packaging, shipping, customer support, printing manuals and health warnings, and all of the other little things that tack on cost between manufacturing and retail?


kinda backwards... the SP (and classic GBA) has a z80 cpu in it for GBC/GB backwards compatability.

No its only the device itself that they cover . They don't talk about packaging and what not . Which really shouldn't be more than 5$ anyway

 

[PC-Engine]

The GBM has a few things the SP doesn't like the headphone jack and included faceplates.

 

[Guden Oden]

We all know that minaturisation costs money (look at PSP's price). The GBA Mini is a few times smaller then the GBA-SP so its going to be more expensive to make.

PSP is a poor comparison to make. PSP has high-powered components with a lot of transistors in them and a large, hi-res screen (comparatively), GBA does not and never has. GBA's electronics was a single-chip SoC IC from day one, and sticking it on a smaller circuit board does not cost additional money in manufacturing. If anything, it'd cost less, since the board, case, screen is smaller, using less resources to build.

 

[Teasy]

PSP is a poor comparison to make. PSP has high-powered components with a lot of transistors in them and a large, hi-res screen (comparatively), GBA does not and never has. GBA's electronics was a single-chip SoC IC from day one, and sticking it on a smaller circuit board does not cost additional money in manufacturing. If anything, it'd cost less, since the board, case, screen is smaller, using less resources to build.

I'm not comparing PSP's price to GBMicro though, just giving an example of reduced size adding cost. It can save money to make something smaller of course. But there is also a line you cross where it then becomes more expensive to reduce the size of a device. I don't know, maybe $44 does seem high, but I doubt that site is making things up.

 

[Guden Oden]

I'm not comparing PSP's price to GBMicro though, just giving an example of reduced size adding cost.

Yes, obviously, but you should have known at the time you wrote it it was not a fitting one. PSP is obviously a high-tech device as far as portable gaming is concerned; GBA wasn't even the day it launched, and to compare the two and say miniaturisation makes things more expensive, well, you just gotta take into account where the hell you start off from. Miniaturising a cardboard box where most of it is air isn't particulary complicated and costly, and clearly the GBA is the cardboard box in this case. There's no dozen-million transistor IC involved, no optical drive, nothing like that. But the thing looks secksy, there's no doubt about that. I'm sure I'll buy one one day; I got a NES edition GBA SP already, but I don't want to risk scratching or wearing the finish on it so I'll just keep it wrapped up safe in its carrying case.

 

[Teasy]

PSP is obviously a high-tech device as far as portable gaming is concerned; GBA wasn't even the day it launched, and to compare the two and say miniaturisation makes things more expensive, well, you just gotta take into account where the hell you start off from.

Didn't say that GBAMicro to GBASP is just the same as PSP to PS2, obviously its not. It was just an extreme example. Where the technology starts off has to be taken into account yeah, but where it ends also has to be. Even making a cardboard box smaller would be more expensive once it reaches a certain size.

In the end neither of us know exactly how easy/hard it is to miniturise any device so lets not make assumptions. I doubt I'll be buying a GBAMicro BTW, I'm just not interested in it to be honest.

 

[Guden Oden]

It was just an extreme example.

Extreme examples are useful when comparing the extreme. I think anyone would be hard-pressed to call the GBA extreme anything!

I doubt I'll be buying a GBAMicro BTW, I'm just not interested in it to be honest.

But it looks so retro! I get these totally crazy game&watch flashbacks from when I was a kid just looking at it... I wish Nintendo would rerelease those things with their original looks (and not the miniaturised versions they put out a couple years ago), g&w ruled back then... Oh well. I should just keep on dreaming I guess.