| thismeintiel said: 1. It doesn't really matter if PSP software sales are low (except for in Japan), though. It just shows not many people are buying new games. The point is the main reason to even get a PSP is for gaming, regardless if people continue to use them. And it's not really fair to add in a phone to the mix, as people who have no intent to play games on it can and will still buy it. It's one of the reasons this site doesn't even track their sales. Now, if the PSP2 ends up being a phone, then the comparison can be made. And just to correct your estimate, iPod Touch plus iPhone sales equaled 85 mil shipped in April 2010. 2. I would like to see any links you have for any royalties Sony has to pay to the Blu-ray Association. Now, according to their website, the Board of Directors do have to pay a $50,000 annual fee. However, seeing as Sony is also part of the Blu-ray Founder Group (along with Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Thomson, LG, Hitachi, Sharp, and Samsung), I would imagine they would have those fees waived. I could be wrong, though. As far as the price for the PS3 goes, you do realize that Sony took a device that cost them approximately $840 to produce, and in only 4 years have now got that cost down to under $299. This will only continue to drop. And while I'm pretty sure we'll never see a $99 PS3, a $199 (or even $149) model is definitely not out of the question. In fact, I'd say we only got about a year and a half to 2 years before we see a $199 model. |
1. Fair or not, they had twice as much revenue than the PSP for gaming in the U.S. and are growing significantly. Its all the proof anyone needs to say that more games are bought and played on an Apple system than a Sony portable. Its the same deal with Windows PCs. Even if most people don't play that many/any games, its still a bigger gaming platform than the PS3 for instance. The market is a software market not a hardware market, and this distinction is becoming even more important given the growing non game use of the current home consoles as well.
2. They went from terrible yields on their chips and expensive prototype components and reduced the price considerably over time with die shrinks and the ramping up of production of their various component parts. The cost curves are always steepest at the start of the generation and they begin to level out over time. At the start of the generation if they paid $30 per console in royalties to various places it would make up a small proportion of their sale price. At $300 its 1/9th, assuming a small margin for retail as an example. This means that the other components must make ever bigger reductions in cost to compensate for the fixed costs within the console.
As for royalties, its a simple assumption that they pay the same as everyone else. http://www.avrev.com/forum/blu-ray-software/3170-blu-ray-royalties-plunge-lowering-costs-both-players-discs.html
$199 is still exceedingly cheap for the technology which is inside the PS3. They will at some point also want to make money on the console as well which is why I consider that price to be the realistic floor price. The PS3 in many ways will remain higher cost because of its legacy as a over-engineered magnificent piece of technology. I will have to say that because the Xbox 360 can be made as a system on chip with only one memory bus and the fact that Microsoft has the Live revenues they can and will price their console cheaper than Sony. The Xbox 360 IS cheap, it will always be cheaper because Microsoft IS cheap!
