Mr Puggsly said:
Estimates aren't exact and it will likely be cheaper to produce a year from now. I don't think MS and Sony are opposed to taking some losses on hardware. |
Of course estimates are not exact. I am reasonably experienced in the mass manufacturing industry to estimate manufacturing costs of consoles within probably 10-15% accuracy (I get lower values than iSupply, but whatever).
The ever so popular argument "it will likely be cheaper in a year" is completely false. It is true for an initial production run compared to later "routine" production runs. For example, manufacuring PS3s and X360s now is _considerably_ more expensive than it was 2-3 years ago. This is a simply law of numbers (and increasing labour costs everywhere, even and particularly in China).
As to who is opposed to losing money or not (and at $199, we are not talking about "some" losses, those are massive losses on a per unit base) is anyones guess. Sony obviously is less willing than MS, as the price of the PS4 in Europe has - after some short promotions - regularly been jacked up to full MSRP during the entire year while X1s were cheap all through the year. You will see it in the quarterly fiscal reports. My guesss is, as last year, record sales but profits will be considerably down (I think Sony even reported a small loss, not sure tho).
