Andrespetmonkey said:
Viper1 said:
Keep in mind that my ¥59,980 figure is the retail price point for the PS3 launch in Japan. Not the actual BOM which was much higher. In other words, if the PS3 had a standard CPU and DVD drive, they could have sold it at that price with no loss. What I'm saying is that they can price the PS4 at ¥59,980 and would likely break even in Japan. The problem is that would mean it would need a $766 price tag in the US to break even.
Obviously you can't sell a $766 PS4. So they'd have to cut the price down much lower. You already agreed that even a $500 price tag is too high. To go down to a $400 launch price would mean a $366 loss per US console sold.
No it wouldn't... What are you talking about? Since when did we decide on how much a PS4 is going to cost to make? Why are you assuming it would cost $766 to make? All I've said is a $100 could be made back, I've not said anything in relation to how much it'll cost at retail and how powerful it'll be, but now I will: I think it should cost $500 to make, and sell for $400. Does this clear anything up? Or is it not you who is consufed but me? don't mean for the first few questions to sound hostile... I'm honestly a little confused.
Naturally, that's not the way to go. So a ¥59,980 price in Japan is too high. Now you can reduce the capability of the system greatly and bring it down to a more manageable ¥39,980. But even that would again require a $510 US price tag to break even. So to get your $400 price in the US, they'd have to take a $110 hit per US console sold AND the capabilites of the system had to be reduced to do it.
I am guesssing somewhere around ¥35,000 for Japan which would need a $450 US price tag. A $50 loss per console is now closer to their budget but the console won't be the powerhouse even hopes it will be.
The foreign exchange rates simply won't permit it.
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I arrive at the costs I did as follows:
The PS3 in Japan cost ¥59,980 at launch. But it cost much more than that to build because of the Blu-ray drive and the CELL processor. So Sony took a huge loss...even at ¥59,980.
If we were to remove the CELL and Blu-ray drive, they could have sold the PS3 at ¥59,980 and broke even. Let's say the PS4 cost is like the PS3 costs only minus the expensive Blu-ray and CELL. That would mean they could sell the PS4 in Japan for ¥59,980 and break even. But if they did that, it would require the PS4 to be sold in the US for $766 to also break even using the current 78.6295 Yen to 1 USD exchange rate.
Does that make more sense now?
