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nightsurge on 22 February 2013
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Alby_da_Wolf said:

The OP article was already overestimating HDD cost, entry level ones can be found at little more than $40 RETAIL price. The MoBo can be cheaper than cheap general purpose ones we commonly buy, as it has to be fitted with a single set of standard components without expansion slots (except maybe one more RAM slot for possible last minute RAM size increase and/or to expand it for devkits), PSEye can be currently sold at RETAIL for ~50 Euros in Europe without bundled game, and an updated PSEye won't be too expensive in a few months, as the tech necessary is already existent and cheap. About RAM price, it should drop quite quickly as usual from current price.
About CPU price, you made the wrong comparison: current AMD 8 cores are high end FX versions, using heavyweight cores, while both XB720 and PS4's APUs will use lightweight "Jaguar" cores. To make an example, IBM and other POWER partners already make POWER 7 multicores with 16 or even 32 lightweight cores cheap and fresh enough to be used in routers and gateways. The GPU will be mid-range, not high-end (as all the streamlining and HW standardisation done in consoles allow mid-range chips to give higher performances than on general purpose, but bloated PCs with wide variety of configuations that allow far lesser optimization). Also the production cost estimate for DualShock4 is quite high.
But in the end yes, including all the things missing in GAF / Beyond3D estimate the costs could exceed $400 minimum, but not so much and closer to $400 than to $500.
Last but not least, the later PS4 will launch, the cheaper its costs for the same HW.

Well put.

Though, I think you are lowballing the new PS Eye's tech a tad. You are probably right about the CPU, though I still think their estimate might be just a tiny hair low then.

The new Dualshock is adding a lot more tech, so I am going assume I am safe with that one, if not a tad low.

I think the mobo cost would be higher than a standard PC mobo because the design is custom fitted to the equipment and thus has more R&D costs involved as well as custom manufacturing required compared to the standard PC mobo sizes and things.

All-in-all, this is a much better launch cost for Sony than PS3, so that is very good. But I still feel like the production costs will be closer to $500 initially, while going down a lot over the first two years.

Only time will tell, since we have no idea what the exact components of each type are being used. Higher quality/higher performance/more custom parts would obviously raise costs.