| drkohler said: And when the dog comes back, you might explain what you wanted to say with "The software doesn't add cost on a per unit basis". I can assure you that software adds a substantial part to the production costs of Natal - particularly when looking at the feature list MS has promised. (Same thing as rrod costs. Those roughly $1.5b used for rrods added $50 production cost to every one of the first 30m XBoxes). On a sidenote, I seriously doubt that Sony will have to pay additional blu tooth royalties for the gadgets. (These royalties are usually "wholesaled" - unless you sign dumb contracts. Regardless, we are talking cents here). |
If the software cost $1,000,000 to create and you make 100 units of Natal or 1000 units or 1,000,000 units the cost of the software remains the same as its a fixed cost. It adds to the overall cost but whether they make 1 or 1,000,000,000 the cost of the software has already been paid for in their research and development budget. Natal in a large part has been created from a lot of pre-existing R+D programs within Microsoft.
I wasn't talking about Blu Tooth royalties I was talking about the cost of the recievers and the cost for implementing rumble (for which they lost a lawsuit for and now pay royalties) as they will want feature parity at least for the controller with the Wiimote. Its cheap but its worth noting anyway.
Where did you get the $1.5B figure from for RROD?
Finally I thought about things as I was walking the dog. Why don't you tell me what you know of the likely costs because I don't want to spend too much time finding out things you already know.
Tease.
Essay Pro