marc said:
Why do I need a link? The XB uses relatively common computer technology that was made well over 5-6 years ago by IBM (cpu) and ATI (gpu). It has a DVD drive, an old hard drive, a small amount of memory and a board. The dvd drive can probably be had for less than $10. The chips and boards probably around $30-$40 given how old they are. The drive depends on the size but lets say the 120gb which can be had easily for around $30 if it were purchased in quantities. Then you have chasis, some wireless components, a ps and a controller. All these are fairly cheap. Put it all together and you can probably make the xbox arcade for about $80 shipped including labor and the hard drive version for around $40 more due to an extra controller, and some cables. I honestly dont care for either the PS3 or the 360 in terms of units sold. The only reason I own a 360 is because it was the 1st to offer itself at $100 (thank you Amazon.com) which was my sweet spot. Unfortunatly for the PS3, I no longer have any use for it but if it were to hit $100 first, I would have bought it instead. I disclose that I have a huge bias towards PC gaming but I have been extremely happy with my 360. As you can probably tell from many of my posts I am a securities investor. I look for the best run and most profitable company at the best price I can get it. I do care about hardware sales but I care more about the bottom line because I actually have money vested not just emotion. That said, I current dont own any Ninny, MS or SNE stock. I do however keep a close eye on all 3 but SNE is the only one I would short comfortably. |
This is a joke, right? You do realize that the 360 has a 3.2 GHz Tricore cpu, right? It may have had that in '05, but PC users didn't have them until '08. It was way ahead of the curve at the time of release. However, now that Tri-cores have been out for awhile they still cost $70-80 at the low end (weaker than the 360's cpu, also) so it'd be a smoking hot deal is MS was getting that for $40, let along a GPU and motherboard to go with it. Even if you're right on the rest you're still a good $60 or more off.
And let's look at those numbers, shall we?
$10 for a DVD player, fine. Makes sense.
$10 for a controller (since the HDD is supposedly $30) sounds low to me.
$40 for a mobo, gpu, memory (but no CPU, since there's really no way it's that cheap) sounds low but believable
$20 for the case, wireless for the controllers, psu, cords, fans, etc also sounds way low.
Chances are it's more like $20 for each controller, $40 for the CPU, $50 for the mobo/GPU/RAM/wireless, $20 for the case+fan, $10 for all the cords, and $20+ for shipping and handling.
You're totally neglecting the fact that the parts have to be shipped to them in the first place, then the complete product is moved to a warehouse, then it's transported internationally to other warehouses, then to the retailer's warehouses, then the retail stores. You also forgot it has to come in a box and that it needs packing materials so it's not damaged and they also pay insurance when shipping since it's going to be a cold day in hell before they let themselves be out that kind of money on a fluke accident.
Also, you've got labor costs. Where are management fees? How do you account for the fact that, given enough time, hardware begins to become more expensive to produce rather continuing to get cheaper? Right now the GDDR3 in the 360 is more expensive than an equivalent GDDR5 to produce due to the materials used, not cheaper. The GPU probably suffers from the same issue, too. And how about defective hardware sent back by retailers at MS's cost?
No, I no longer need to ask if it's a joke, but why you would make such a joke. The XBox360 without a harddrive is barely profitable, if at all. They're sure to make fair gains with the Elite, but not the arcade. Your claims aren't just utterly without basis, since neither of us knows exactly wat MS pays, but they are completely ignorant of the realities of hardware manufacture. On top of that you're ignoring a lot of aspects that get factored into the cost (several I didn't even bother to mention) of each machine.
You do not have the right to never be offended.
