PS3 licensing cost could still be a little high as it has a nvidia gpu and that company has a history of being a pain when it comes to tech royalties. Generally though the current ps3 uses a cheap 40nm fabrication process and there are always options for using other components that perform at the required level. Most hardware becomes cheaper because later fabrication processes allow many more chips to be made at each time as the older hardware is lower performance. I'm sure the ps3 is making Sony good money nowadays and they likely have 2 or 3 more revisions to come. Some may simply be cheaper internal designs for lower cost others might be more radical for example a ps3 without an optical drive so relies on psn completely for game downloads. Perhaps something like this will replace the playstation tv.
It's a different story at Microsoft though who are probably itching to drop the 360 and move people onto the xbone.
