Intrinsic said:
You are just helping me prove my point. My point is that there is no reason that it should cost as much as it does. Now if they are using pascal which will also mean at most a16nm fab process then that means it should even cost them less to aquire their chips than if they were using the older (larger) 20nm process. I am not talking about nor do i care about the power of the system, I am talking about its price. The whole thing is overpriced to me and i really cant see what about it justifies that $300 price point. I mean just look at the dock for crying out loud, yh yh i know sold seperately its probably marked up to all hell and back but that thing cant possibly cost more than $20 for nintendo to make. Hell lets give it $30. The switch has no disc drive, no internal HDD, a 720p LCD screen (thats probably not even IPS), 32GB of flash storage (mind you you can get a 64GB USB flash drive on amazon for $15 so it probably cost ninty no more than $5 for that 32GB of flash storage) The joycon controllers cant cost them more than $30 total, maybe another $10 for its grip. |
I'd disagree, the more I think about the 300 dollar price tag the more it is justified. Let's see why;
First of all, the screen. It's a 720p multi-touch screen, you'd dismiss it as a 20 dollar chinese low-end screen. However people who have been on the hands-on events report that the screen is bright, vivid, colorful and most importantly the viewing angles are also great. It's probably not the low-end 20 dollar chinese 720p touchscreen. But another thing that raises it's price by a bigger margin is the advanced haptic feedback on the touch-screen, which hasn't been discussed at all here. Basically it uses ultra-sonic waves to provide a bigger variety of sensasions instead of simple vibrations, as seen in the following video;
Source : http://ir.immersion.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=1007907
This would cost quite a bit to implement, and also considering they're also using their tech they're most certainly paying them a fee.
Next, the Joy-Cons. The HD Rumble in such a small controller with a battery and the system that they use to attach to the Switch jack up the price, and it's supposedly very well built and not cheap at all. Not to mention they've crammed an IR camera in there and a NFC sensor in the other. All while designing them to be suited for accessories and hands of all sizes certainly aren't made for 30 dollars. On the hands on event there was actually a demo where they shaked the Joy-Con around and they could feel 3 marbles bouncing around a wooden box (or a similar scenario), and they could feel each one fall and roll around in the Joy-Con. Not to mention Nintendo also bundled in the wrist straps for them, along with the grip.
The flash storage probably didn't cost a lot at all, but this amount of storage makes a lot of sense for many reasons. First of all, not everyone's going to buy games digitally only. Adding in more storage would have jacked the price up higher for those who were planning on getting games in physical format, and those who want more probably already have a Micro SD laying around or will buy it for cheap. Bundling in 500GB isn't as cheap for the Switch as it is for the PS4 and XBONE, because of their size and form factor they can bundle in cheap and clunky HDD's with a lot of storage, and make them replacable. Not to mention that if you didn't have to install games from discs and they could run directly from them, the XBONE and PS4 would also have small amounts of storage in their base models.
Next, the dock. This one I'll agree definetly isn't as expensive and doesn't take up much of those 300 dollars at all, but I'd estimate that with the plastic, the motherboard and port types and the soft padding for the Switch it's around 35 dollars. The AC power adapter and USB to HDMI are probably another 15, considering they're probably much better quality than the ones you'd find on eBay for a dollar or two.
And last but not least you have to factor in the fact the device is fairly thin and there's a lot of stuff that needs to be crammed in it, the battery, the cooling system, the RAM, flash storage, ports and slots, the speakers and the processor. Everything but the processor probably adds up to around 40-ish dollars, and now you need a efficent, cool, small and powerful processor for cheap. Pascal fits the bill no doubt, and a die shrink of a 3 year old processor doesn't make sense for nVidia who wants to get into the gaming industry and they definetly want Nintendo to sell these well and earn their share of the profit, and also showcase and sell their new tech. A die shrink wouldn't be as efficent as Pascal either.
People underestimate the tech in the Switch and rant about the 300 dollar price without knowing what's in the package, not to mention complaining about online without knowing how much it costs. For all we know it could be 20 dollars a year. They focused on the major points like screen quality, build quality, the immersive controls and portability. They had to cut corners like storage and 4130mAh battery to make the price tag while earning a profit. The Switch is so far turning out to be very impressive from a tehnical standpoint, and will offer a much better gaming experience than the four times more expensive iPad Pro (the 12" version), and allow you to play at home instead of buying another Nintendo home console. Sounds like a deal to me.
