What the HELL is up with Blu Ray

[greenmedic88]

The BD drive component is under $100 at manufacturer cost. iSupply estimated a price of $125 back in January 2008.

The key component was the BD diode itself, which originally cost over $100 alone, but these have drastically reduced in price since the format debuted (2007 saw production meet demand).

The 65nm Cell processor costs about $60 currently. The original 90nm chip was about $89.

The RSX was originally estimated at about $129. No idea what it currently is, but with the 65nm die shrink and the age of the chip itself (essentially a custom 7800GTX), I'd be surprised if it was even half that today.

XDR memory was originally about $50.

The entire motherboard (including the CBE, RSX, XDR mem, EE/GS chipset, etc. soldered on it) was originally estimated to cost about $350.

The aluminum HSF with copper heat pipes would maybe add anywhere from $30-50 to the cost (I'd lean towards the lower end compared to retail prices of OTS HSFs)

The housing itself was surprisingly expensive at about $60 (just the plastic casing). The current casings (40GB onward) might be a bit cheaper. They feel lighter to me, but that could just be from overall component reduction over the original 60GB model.

The original PSU was actually a pretty beefy 380w considering it used about 200w under load. Not sure what the 40GB and current 80GB use although consumption dropped considerably with each version (CBE 90-65nm die shrink, RSX 90-65nm die shrink).

Assembly was and should still be about $40 per unit.