Total Cost of Ownership

[robjoh]

Steve 3.2 said: Something that hasn't been discussed much is the 'Total Cost of Ownership' of all the new systems. Today, we evaluate everything from cars to water heaters to determine how much more something will cost us down the road. As such, I think it's only fair to give some thought about how much a video game system may run us over the course of it's lifetime. Anyone care to break them down to come up with some estimates? I've got the ball rolling below: 360: $400 Initial Purchase $40 - Extra Controller $600 - 10 New Games $40 - Charge and Play Kit x 2 $250 - Online Service Over 5 Years Total So Far - $1,330 ($1,080 w/o Live Gold) PS3: $500 Initial Purchase $50 - Extra Controller $600 - 10 New Games Free - Batteries (Included in controllers) Free - Online Service Over 5 Years Total So Far: $1,150 Wii: $250 Initial Purchase $500 - 10 New Games $60 - Extra Controller (You really need both the Wiimote and Nunchuck) $30 - Batteries (Buy rechargeable NiMH) Free - Online Service Over 5 Years Total So Far: $840 So feel free to add whatever else you feel is necessary to own the system over 5 years. (10 games is based upon the attach rate of the last generation of system in the US.)

You can't calculate TCO in that way, you have resale value pointed out by reverie, and you have the cost for the money (yes spending money cost money). More xbox360 cost might be too high because some games actuly come with free hours gold membership. So you have to look at: 1, how often do you buy a new game, at which time? (etc what is the cost of that money) 2, The extra money I spend now (instead of buying a cheap consol) what intresst do I lose during this five years: (example, assuming 4% intresst at the bank, 250 USD = 304 USD after 5 years. That means that you should ad a cost on the PS3 with 54 USD. The same thing can be done with xbox360 just holding Wii as the base. (you could obvios to the revese thing to. You have to include the 10 USD extra per game to. 3, After 5 years when you sell the system, how much will you get back. PS3 should mayby be at 600 USD, because I have heard that the PS3 20 gb is pretty hard to get you hand on.