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Breaking Down the Dropping Parts Cost for Sony's PS3

Posted by timothy on from the wait-until-it's-all-one-chip dept.

will_die writes "The people at iSuppli have taken apart an October 2008 version of the PlayStation 3 to create a bill of materials, along with providing a comparison to original PS3. The article provides information about the changes Sony has made. One of the big ones was that the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73. This was done using a combination of removing parts (currently 2,820 vs. the original 4,048), cutting the cost of the CPU ($46.46 vs. $64.40), and cutting the cost of the graphics processor to $58.01 from $83.17."

4 of 302 comments (clear)

  1. Sony needs to... by GPLDAN · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It still precludes them from selling at $299, which is where marketing data is suggesting they need to go to compete against Xbox.

    PS3 is being outsold by a good margin month to month, which means market share is dwindling (although objectively there are more PS3s in the world, which makes the equation for game developers shift) - and they seem to be losing developer mind share, as evidenced by the fact that there are few games that are PS3 exclusive. Most importantly and shockingly, Microsoft is getting Japanese game developers to come over to Xbox, where that model simply didn't exist in the PS2 days.

    Sony needs about 4-5 more Metal Gear Solid like titles, and they really need to work out the bugs with online play. I don't use my PS3 online, but from what I am to understand, it's not even close to Xbox live.

    1. Re:Sony needs to... by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They still need to make money.
      If you sell at a loss you don't make it up in volume, you just create a larger loss. I am not sure why people in slashdot never think of this concept that a for profit company kinda needs to make profit. Selling at a loss doesn't create profit. Sony is better off trying to prove that the Play Station is worth the cost, vs. selling at a loss. Even if they don't make #1 seller for the PS 3 they will make money from their units sold. And perhaps the PS 4 can get back.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Sony needs to... by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      even the Wii will probably fall short unless it gets real games.

      People keep saying this while the Wiis market share keeps growing. I know 3 families that got Wiis for Christmas. All of these families were in the anti-video game crowd. Everyone one of them seems to enjoy their Wii. One friend of mine was excited about it because his wife goes..."it's great we can download the old nintendo games, because new games are too complicated to play."

      I have played games since I was a kid and it's easy to miss just how appealing the Wii and its lack of 'real games' is to an apparently large majority of people.

  2. Consistency Please! by camperdave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Keep all the price comparisons either from-to or all to-from. Don't mix the two because you'll confuse people (eg me). When I saw "...the hardware has gone from costing $690.23 to the current price of $448.73." it triggered me to read the last sentence as "cutting the cost of the graphic processor from $46.46 to $64.40.". I thought I was seeing some sort of Orwellian finances in effect.

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