By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
JWeinCom on 31 August 2014
Edit Thread
tak13 said:
JWeinCom said:
Nintendo would quite literally lose millions of dollars in actual dollars and millions more in potential revenue.

The 3DS is already just about discontinued, so no point in dropping the price. The XL could be dropped to about 180 or bundled with a game. A 50% pricecut is insane. Not like the PS3 or 360 dropped 50%.


loool didnt ps3 cost 600$ in the beginning? you re one from the many who are telling me this!phones have a 50% drop soon,and dont make a loss,plus that their  hardware cost far fewer...:Pif 3ds xl hardware costs 90$, 100$ price wont be bad ,also it would drive insane sales! at least 25% price cut is indispensable


PS3 dropped in price over the years like many consoles do, but it didn't drop 50% when the PS4 came out.  

The 3DS cost $103 or so when it released.  That's not counting the cost of developing and implementing build in software, royalties they have to pay for patents (including new royalties from a lost lawsuit), payments to companies like Opera (I believe they supply the browser software), the profit of retailers (about 20 dollars or so at launch dunno how much now), and other factors.  The increased cost of the XL's larger screen (the most expensive part of the 3DS costing 33 dollars at launch), probably offsets the reduced price in other components.  Keep in mind, after the initial price cut, Nintendo took a loss on each 3DS sold at $180, so those fees beyond manufacturing add up big time.  Unlike cell phones, they don't make money off of contracts that people are locked into for two years, and the profit margin is not nearly as high as an unlocked phone. 

At best, Nintendo would break even off of a 3DS XL at 100 dollars.

Nintendo makes about 7-10 dollars per each 3DS game sold at full price.  I'll round to 10 to make the math easy.  By selling a 3DS at 100 instead of 200, they need to sell 10 games per 3DS to make up the difference.

Of course if they sell more units they'll move more software, but not enough to offset the difference.

Let's assume the 3DS costs 100 dollars.   If they sell 10 million 3DS at 100 dollars, they would make... 0 dollars.  So, they need to make up 500 million dollars in software profit.  To do so they would need to sell about 50 million games, or about 5 games per 3DS user.  5 is about the average number of games a DS user bought.  So, Nintedo would make 500 million dollars.

On the other hand, if Nintendo sells 5 million 3DS at 200 dollars, they make 500 million dollars.  If they then sell 5 games per owner, (25 million games) they'd make another 250 million dollars.  So, they'd make 750 million dollars altogether.  

This is assuming the 3DS could break even at 100 dollars, which I don't believe it could.  

 

 

For the shortened version, halving the price would have to triple or quadruple sales to be worthwhile.  The price cut would have to push the 3DS to DS levels before Nintendo made money off of it.  Obviously my figures are a very rough estimate, but even if you change the figures around, it wouldn't make much of a difference.  Not a smart move by Nintendo.