stewacide on 19 February 2007
reverie said:
Nintendo's R&D expenses almost doubled when they developed the Wii. They reported 31 billion Yen in R&D expenses for 2006 (fiscal year, ending 03'2006), up from 15-17 billion Yen per year from 2000 to 2004 and 21 billion Yen in 2005 (Source: nintendo.co.jp). So it's fair to say that Nintendo had to spend less in R&D for the GameCube. Probably their partners like ATI and IBM had to do less R&D for the Wii, but that motion sensing must have cost Nintendo 10 billion Yen of R&D alone.
Well of course they have to pay for their suppliers costs in the end. IBM had to do so little, and AIT it seems essentially nothing, that Nintendo is likely paying the bare cost of manufacture for the chips.
