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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."

10 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 F-3582 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      No. GPLDAN just used the word the wrong way. What he really meant was that while the absolute number of PS3s sold to customers are going up - more people buying than returning - the relative numbers (=market share) goes down, because the competitors keep outselling it.

      What I'd like to know is the real install base of the three consoles. You know, not every Xbox360 sold is actually going to a new customer due to a so-called RROD phenomenon. Is there any good data to clear that up?

    3. Re:Sony needs to... by Sleepy · · Score: 5, Informative

      >Actually I just bought a brand new PS3 from Sony for $250.

      I did the same exact thing last year for $299, got the 40GB model. I bought the PS3 mainly for the BluRay player.

      I did not WANT a credit card out of the deal (even if it is a Chase card), but I read the fine print:
        $100 off a PS3,
          NO INTEREST 12 months..
          AND no yearly card fee?

      I paid off the PS3 early at 10 months, the card is blank, and soon to be canceled. I told others, but no one believed the terms and I know 3 people who paid full price anyways. Wacky..

    4. 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.

    5. Re:Sony needs to... by benwaggoner · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't think Microsoft wanted either format to gain critical mass - wide and early adoption is a threat to Microsoft's goal of 'services', including pay per view and digital downloads. Microsoft set HD video back by a year, that's all they got and that's all they wanted.

      I worked on the HD DVD team back then, and we manifestly wanted HD DVD to win, and we invested quite a lot in it. However, we didn't bet the Xbox 360 on it the way Sony bet the PS3 on BD (which appears to have been a good choice from the console business perspective). In the end, Sony was willing pay to whatever cost it took for BD to win.

      Our interest was much more in delivering great video experiences than in which particular substrate thickness of polycarbonate imaged with a blue-violet laser won in the end.

      This is a sample of what I've been working on these days:

      http://smoothhd.com/

      Still pre-beta, but I don't think that optical media will be the hard or the interesting part of HD video delivery much longer.

      --

      My video compression blog
  2. GPU down from $83.17 to $58.01 by hansamurai · · Score: 5, Informative

    Because the summary probably won't be fixed.

    --
    Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
  3. If only Microsoft hadn't cut corners by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They wouldn't have had to spend over $1B on repairs and extend the warranty an extra 3 years for the XBox 360. Chances are, the 360 would be cutting a small profit by now. The moral of the story if the successor to the XBox 360 is to trounce Sony, is that they need to not cut corners if they want to exploit Sony's weakness. They'd better learn that because the PS3 is a very, very powerful system and when it hits $300 will be in the range that a lot of gamers will be willing to pay.

  4. 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.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  5. Re:lame by not+already+in+use · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's all take a moment to apologize to Bobtree for his wasted time clicking on this news story.

    Sorry Bobtree.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors