| snowdog said: There's no way that the PS4 or 720 will retail for $299 after a year on the market, not knowing what we do about the hardware and what's bundled in the box. Microsoft might manage a $399.99 price at launch if they didn't bundle Kinect 2.0 with it, but can you really see that happening..? And Sony have recently said they're not going to make a huge loss on each unit sold. We're talking about an 8 core CPU, a GPU pushing 1.8TFlops, 8GB of GDDR5, a camera bar with 2 cameras and a Move/DS3 hybrid. I really can't see either one of them releasing for less than $400, more like $499.99. |
You're forgetting that Nintendo is also losing money on each Wii U sold. Only difference is that Sony is probably taking a loss because of the hardware (8gigs of GddR5 isn't cheap) and Nintendo because of it's tablet controller. And no they don't cost $20 to build.
Expenses related to the Wii U's touchscreen-equipped GamePad seem to be a major contributor to the Wii U's overall manufacturing costs as well. While individual GamePads won't be available at launch in North America, they will be sold a la carte in Japan for ¥13,440 (about $172), or more than half the total price of a system and GamePad together.
Microsoft will try to compensate this by bumping up the XBL subsription fee, and it they succeed then it won't be a problem for them to drop the price.
