Speculate Wii's BOM

$30 for all of that? I'd be interested to see you itemise that list.

 

speaking of BOM, does anyone else feel content that this time with wii having a single A/V port doing both the 'analog' and 'digital' outs ninty won't be able to "reconsider" later on and cut out the digital? : )

*me still sour that all of my dreamcasts (ntsc, ntsc-j and pal) can do VGA out no prob, while my late-production ntsc cube is stuck with interlaced for eternity*

 

Yes, Wii is confirmed to have one single output for AV Analoge and Digital. Perhaps imige quality will also be better even on composite because of this.

 

Back in the old Genesis days, retailers generally made around $5 per console sold. I got that from an owner of a video game store (he owned a few of them actually).

 

Will it even have digital out? AFAIK, isn't Xbox 360 analog only?

 

by 'digital' i originally meant a set of signals on the A/V port allowing progressive, component output signaling. it's just that the oringinal port on the cube that allowed that was actually digital AFAIK. whether the wii A/V port is actually digital or not was not of my concen in that post.

 

Yeh when i first read about the retailers profit from wii it was said that it was nintendo's way of getting retailers to support wii, because the profit margin on wii wil be higher than 360/PS3 for retailers

but most of the seemed more reasonable to me comparitvely

Well if that is the case then i probably overestimated the cost of wii sports as well, so you have to wonder what's making the console so expensive lol

 

Yes it does. It shares the same port as the composite one.

 

I don't think that Nintendo will do a lot of profit with the first units since making a new hardware is always costy but in few months their profit will rise a lot. I expect that Nintendo will reduce the Wii price at the same time as MS, Xbox 360 core selling at lower price than Wii would be ridiculous.

 

Here is that wholesale price info:

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/10/16/explainer-wiis-push-xbox-360s-pull/

Wii's wholesale for 237.50 according to that.

________
Avandia class action

 

Nintendo has actually said they'll be making a profit day 1, not a huge one but it will be profitable none the less

 

yes, i remember Perrin Kaplan saying so in a interview. but the thing is, she did not say outright 'profit on the hardware' - she shaid, IIRC something along 'wii will be profitable from day one' - that could just as well mean that the hw is at ~break-even, ergo the patform would be profitable with the first sold piece of software. particularly in NA - from the first sold wii sports bundle.

 

Ya I've heard the whole "Wii will be profitable" statement from a few official sources but each time stated a different way. I think they are being purposely vague.

 

Slightly OT: Who makes the DVD-ROM drive in Wii? Also what is its max read speed?

 

I believe the Wii uses the same disc format as the Gamecube. Meaning, it does not have a DVD-ROM drive (as it cannot even play DVD movies). I would not be surprised if Philips was the manufacturer though, since their relationship in the early 90s after Nintendo backstabbed Sony.

 

It can play DVD movies, it just doesn't ship with the software. I beleive in Japan early next year they will ship the software.

 

Most likely it's Panasonic since they have a preexisting relationship with Nintendo from Gamecube.

 

That's a peculiar way of putting it. The whole Wii is just the size of a (short) PC internal drive. It's one integrated thing. I wonder who's making the Wii inside the drive?

The proper answer is probably Flextronics. There may be one or two externally sourced drive parts in there.

 

What I meant was who manufactures the drive, not who assembles the drive into the console. The drive is likely made by a drive manufacturer then put into the Wii console by Flextronics or some other EMS. For example we know the DVD-ROM drive in the X360 is made by LG.