| barneystinson69 said: But why not? It was estimated in 2013 it cost 380$ to make an XB1. Its been 3 years, and the XB1's hardware is already dated. I'd say its below 300$ at this point, so what exactly is the issue? Software has always been the place to make money, but its clear Microsoft isn't thinking that way. Following the PS4's price has been a disaster thus far, and it shows. They where flat in 2015 in terms of sales compared to 2014, and this year is showing the same picture. 2017 will likely be a large decline, and after that it'll be selling like garbage. Also no third party marketing deals and games going to PC = no relevance to market. |
Doesnt quite work that way. in the industry all things have a fixed price point till something better or cheaper comes along. To explain:
The APU in the XB1/PS4 cost exactly what it cost to make in 2013 as it does today, maybe even more if you factor in inflation. And that will remain the same until the chip foundaries that mak e them switch to 14/16nm process from the 28nm they are still on today. Memory costs go down as fabrication process improve too. For chips, it's that you can make more chips with one wafer disc and for memory it's that you can fit higher capacities in fewer modules.
Right now the PS4 is using 8 modules less of memory cause they moved from 512MB modules to 1024MB modules. that amounts to about a 40-45% reduction in memory cost price for them. but the APU and disc drive still cost the same to make. As for the HDD, that's funny, cause at some point it starts costing you more putting in 500GB than it does putting in 1TB.
Simply put, don't look at the time. look at the tech, that should tell you when propwr cost reductions are coming. The foundary that makes their APUs just started spitting out their first batch of 16nm chips. but the likes of Nvidia and AMD gets first dibs on those. Expect to see the tech in the ps4/xb1 sometime next year. then we get slim.versions of the consoles and then we can start talking about sub $250 consoles or less.
When 14/16nm fabrication hits consoles, they basically get 4 Chios for what it cost them to get one right now. They can also do away with the fan/heat sink or out in a smaller cheaper one. Put in a smaller PSU, smaller board, smaller case, smaller box, lower shilling cost or shipping more for the same prices.... hell, if they really wanted to push it, they could make the consoles discless and price them at $199 then make u pay $80 for a USB disc drive if you insist you want to use a disc.
