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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U Cost Of Manufacturing Detailed

fedfed on 10 April 2012

this is the only rumor I WANT TO BELIEVE £299 at launch will be incredible!



Switch!!!

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DélioPT on 10 April 2012

I hope this is true, specially because that would probably mean that an extra controller won´t be that expensive. I`m guessing a 80€/$ for retail.



kitler53 on 10 April 2012
Mr Khan said:
greenmedic88 said:

It will be interesting to see how this early report stacks up against the official iSuppli teardown and BoM estimate once they have a retail unit to analyze.

If correct, then it will have fallen in line with what I assumed would be the case. Nintendo won't sell a $399 console. Nintendo also won't take a loss on any hardware they sell (previously established). The Wii U controller would not be an excessively expensive component, in direct contrast to what quite a few naysayers claimed without even making an attempt to break down the cost of components that would go into such a controller. Probably because they were comparing the controller to a tablet PC, which the Wii U controller is most certainly not.

If I remember correctly, I said it would probably cost under $100 to manufacture, and that was on the conservative side, not even taking into account contract discounts with parts suppliers, bulk purchase rates, etc.

Plus, $299 seems to be the price at which the vast majority of consumers are willing to pay for the Wii U. Nintendo won't make the same mistake they made with the 3DS by overestimating consumer demand relative to what they would be willing to pay.

Based on the early reports, the bulk of the components from the CPU and GPU, no internal HDD, proprietary media format (no DVD or BD playback/licensing costs), etc. I was of the belief that NIntendo could pull off selling the Wii U for about $300 while still making a small profit on each unit sold. That's their proven speciality when it comes to hardware.

As for the 3DS, even at $169, the initial BoM was slightly over $100. I'm sure it's under $100 by now.

I suspect the reception to the Wii U at retail would be similar to that of the 3DS at $249 if Nintendo were to price it at $399.

I never quite understood why people thought it would cost a lot in the first place anyway. The U Pad seems to be essentially a DSiXL, but with the CPU and GPU stripped out (but with things like microphone and camera still in there, and a few other bits to bring cost up, but only one resistive touch screen)

If DSiXL is only so inexpensive, U Pad should be even less so.

perspective.  i for one thought that the wiiU remote would be expensive.  if this rumor is true than ~$50 to manufacture (vs. $11 as miz sourced) is confirmation that it is expensive.  i'm not talking breaking the bank expensive or ipad expensive but that is ~$40 worth of cost that have to cut off of somewhere else in the system...which probably means it's raw specs and why i still believe the rumors that the wiiU is only slightly better than current gen is plausible.   by these rumor's numbers 27.7% of the cost of a wiiU is the tablet.  that's pretty expensive imo.



Mr Khan on 10 April 2012
Squilliam said:
IBM want to be paid.
AMD want to be paid.
Blu Ray association or whomever they license off want to get paid.
Networking technology companies want to get paid.
Various other royalties also need to be paid.

Bottom line: Add about $30-50 to that estimated costing.

Proprietary disc format, with what amounts likely to a one-time payment to some company (likely Toshiba, if history serves us) to develop a Blu-Ray knockoff similar to Wii's not-quite-DVDs



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Squilliam on 10 April 2012
Mr Khan said:
Squilliam said:
IBM want to be paid.
AMD want to be paid.
Blu Ray association or whomever they license off want to get paid.
Networking technology companies want to get paid.
Various other royalties also need to be paid.

Bottom line: Add about $30-50 to that estimated costing.

Proprietary disc format, with what amounts likely to a one-time payment to some company (likely Toshiba, if history serves us) to develop a Blu-Ray knockoff similar to Wii's not-quite-DVDs

History also serves us with examples like the typical industry practice of licensing on a per unit basis. The reason why console companies report the number of consoles sold is for royalty purposes.



Tease.

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Conegamer on 10 April 2012

Anonymous source?

YAY! So it's just as likely that it'll cost 50p and be made out of cardboard and will only play Hotel Mario and Wand Of Gamelon from the CDi as this being true then?



 

Here lies the dearly departed Nintendomination Thread.

Mr Khan on 10 April 2012
Squilliam said:
Mr Khan said:
Squilliam said:
IBM want to be paid.
AMD want to be paid.
Blu Ray association or whomever they license off want to get paid.
Networking technology companies want to get paid.
Various other royalties also need to be paid.

Bottom line: Add about $30-50 to that estimated costing.

Proprietary disc format, with what amounts likely to a one-time payment to some company (likely Toshiba, if history serves us) to develop a Blu-Ray knockoff similar to Wii's not-quite-DVDs

History also serves us with examples like the typical industry practice of licensing on a per unit basis. The reason why console companies report the number of consoles sold is for royalty purposes.

I figured the point of proprietary formatting was so that you didn't have to pay royalties on a per unit basis, otherwise why bother not getting the mainstream technology?



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Squilliam on 11 April 2012
Mr Khan said:
Squilliam said:

History also serves us with examples like the typical industry practice of licensing on a per unit basis. The reason why console companies report the number of consoles sold is for royalty purposes.

I figured the point of proprietary formatting was so that you didn't have to pay royalties on a per unit basis, otherwise why bother not getting the mainstream technology?

You still need to pay for the development of the physical ability to read and recreate the discs so long as the patents apply. The advantage is that instead of paying $9.75 or thereabouts they may pay $5 for the specific licenses they need and it enables them to create discs which cannot be burnt on their own players. I.E perhaps slightly lower costs, perhaps not but the main advantage is that you cannot burn a Wii U disc in a Blu Ray burner and have it play no matter how you try to hack the system.



Tease.