PS3 production costs decreasing 70%... does that mean it's profitable?

[Procrastinato]

NJ5 said:

Procrastinato said:

NJ5 said:

 

This means the price has decreased around 60% since launch, while production costs have decreased 70%... the price has decreased almost as much as the production cost, which means Sony is losing less money than at launch, but not by a huge margin, and probably not by a big enough margin to make the PS3 hardware profitable yet (as they were losing obscene amounts of money at launch).

The way you state these percentages is pretty misleading.  You could say that, with the given conversion rates, if the ratio between revenue and expense was 1:1 at launch, then its now 4:3, which is a LOT better sounding than the "60% decrease, 70% decrease" percentages you threw out appear at first glance.

Of course, we knew that the ratio wasn't 1:1 at launch, but I sincerely doubt that it was less than 3:4, which does certainly imply profit on the slim.

According to the iSuppli report (which AFAIK is all we have), the PS3 cost $840 to produce back then, wasn't it? That's more than a 3:4 ratio.

 

You're right about the US numbers, but I was referring to the overall sales ratio.  I believe the ratio was better for Sony in the EU and Japan, was it not?