Squilliam said:
A.) You don't know the yields/cost of the chips, B.) You don't know the manufacturing defect rate, C.) You don't know the ongoing warranty costs, D.) You don't know what costing model they use |
Obviously nobody knows the yields of the PS3/XBox processors and the exact prices negotiated between the companies (except the parties involved and IBM certainly is not going to tell us). However, rough estimates on yields are known and even if there were uncertainties in the 10-20% range, that would yield to roughly the same differences in chip prices, which again would result in price differences in the single $ digits. None of the other points you bring up have _anything at all_ to do with estimating the manufacturing costs. It really is important to have insight into mass manufacturing processes (and how expensive things are on that level - and I have come across many surprises within the past 25 years when I tried to estimate stuff without knowing the facts behind them) when trying to figure out the manufacturing of a mass market gadget (something you obviously lack so don't make up invalid points to argue).
