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thismeintiel on 17 August 2020
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DonFerrari said:
shikamaru317 said:

Xbox One X was almost certainly selling at a small profit at $500 on launch. It released a year after PS4 Pro and still cost $100 more than PS4 Pro did at launch. Also, it got price drops really quickly, MS wouldn't have been able to afford to do price drops that quickly if XB1 X was being sold at a loss on release or even at cost. So, while Xbox Series X almost certainly has a higher bill of materials than XB1 X did, it's also heavily rumored that MS is planning on selling it at a loss.

While it is true that PS5's chipset will be less expensive than Series X's chipset since it has alot less CU's, you have to remember that it has increased costs coming in other areas: 

  1. PS5's SSD is going to be substantially more expensive that Series X's SSD. It is custom made and about twice as fast, faster even then comparably sized PC SSD's that are currently selling for like $250 at retail.
  2. PS5's case is likely slightly more expensive than Series X's case. It is larger, meaning more plastics and metal will be needed to make it.
  3. PS5 almost certainly has multiple fans to help keep it cool, since they are relying so heavily on overclocking their GPU, and each extra fan above Series X's single fan will add to the cost.
  4. PS5's controller is chock full of tech that the Series X controller lacks, motors for the impulse triggers, advanced haptic feedback, touchpad, microphone, speaker, internal battery. I'd be willing to bet that the PS5 controller costs at least $15 more to make than the Series X controllers do, and since each system will come bundled with a controller, that adds to the consoles overall bill of materials.

I wouldn't be surprised if the bill of materials for Series X and PS5 are very close to one another. What will matter is if one or both of them is willing to sell at a loss, unlike this gen where both console were sold at cost at launch ($381 BOM for PS4 and $471 BOM for XB1 back in 2013). Rumor is MS is willing to sell at a loss on Series X, which is also why they reportedly delayed their August Xbox announcements into September, they clearly want Sony to announce pricing first so that they can undercut them or at least price match them. Sony meanwhile will likely be willing to sell the discless PS5 at a loss since digital software sales have higher profit margins for them, but I'm not so sure that they will be willing to sell the disc drive PS5 at a loss as well. We could very well see discless PS5 and XSX coming in at the same price, with disc drive PS5 costing $50 more.

Best estimates on BOM so far is PS5 about 450 and XSX 480 if I'm not wrong.

The PS5 was an estimate reported by Forbes, and for the disk version. The XSX one was just something a Twitter insider guessed. He admitted not knowing anything about cost. He also gave a range of $480-$540, or somewhere around there. 

While it being from Forbes doesn't make it 100% true, I believe it's probably more accurate than the XSX guess. I really think we are getting prices like this:

XSS: $299

PS5 DE: $399

PS5: $449-$499

XSX: $549-$599

MS knows damn well they weren't beating the PS5's price point, since their APU is much bigger and they aren't interested in taking a huge lose on HW while they are focusing on streaming/GamePass. It's why we even have a Lockhart launching. And why all the talk of selling less than PS and Nintendo.