Here's iSuppli's breakdown of cost for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 in November 2006:
PS3 and Xbox 360: Breakdown of production costs (US$) | ||
Item | PS3 (60GB version) | Xbox 360 (20GB hard drive version) |
Motherboard, CPU, graphics processor, chipset, etc. | 352 | 204 |
Optical disc drive/player | 125 | 19.45 |
Hard disc drive | 54 | 43 |
Power supply | 37.50 | 25.50 |
Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g network modules | 19.60 | N/A |
Other components | 150.50 | N/A |
Chassis and related | 61.75 | 25.25 |
Assembly | 40 | 6.10 |
Total cost | 840.35 | 323.30 |
Retail price | 599 | 399 |
The falcon chipset released in 2007 is known to have reduced the cost of the system. Assuming an extremely conservative 25% drop in costs since 2006 a premium cost Microsoft ~$242.78 to make. It's extremely likely in my opinion that the actual cost of making a premium is between $200-$242.78.
The reason why the PS3's manufacturing price has dropped so much compared to the Xbox 360 in one year is because the Xbox 360 experienced such a drop in it's first year of production (it went from ~$715 to ~$323.30 to produce.
