the reason why a 1GB stick drops so far in price is because they are selling much more of them. tens of companies all sell them and compete with each other for pricing, millions upon millions of people have them. Shit I have about 12....that I got for FREE, because companies just give them out with their logos on them.
They're in everything from thumbdrives to pens to little rubber cartoon characters.
The things inside the wii are old, yes. But they are not saturated anywhere near what a 1GB stick is. I mean, some of the parts are, like 802.11 wireless and bluetooth, but not the processor or mobo or GPU. Unless I am mistaken, they are variants of products that are, for the most part, not commercially used.
As such, a company needs to allocate distinct machines for it's production, they need their own storage and parts.
It's just the same with the cell. the cell is also a modified chip with all the same problems of manufacturing. That's why it's still so expensive.
EDIT: I'm not saying they're locked in price, I'm saying it takes a lot longer for the costs to go down. Plus manufacturing doesn't get cheaper from cost alone, it's main way to lessen price is mass prodution, millions upon millions of them made.
