| Soundwave said: By 1996, Nintendo probably could have put a CD-ROM in the N64 if they really wanted to and sold it for $250, which was supposed to be the original launch price anyway (Nintendo lowered the price to $199.99 even before the system released). CD drive prices were dropping fast by '96, this is why Playstation was able to cut its price to $199.99 as well in 1996 to match the N64's price tag. |
Keep in mind that back then CD Rom Drives were still like $100+ AUD back then.
And Sony was building it's own optical drives, where Nintendo wasn't.
And even if we fast forward to today, Microsoft and Sony are selling consoles without optical drives with a chunk of change off the MSRP.
It's a cost.
| Soundwave said: The Tegra X1 in the Switch while cutting edge for 2015 was never that expensive even in 2015. The Nvidia Shield released in spring 2015 for $199.99. |
nVidia tends to charge a premium for it's parts, even when they offer less performance.
| Soundwave said: Display and batteries are much cheaper today as they're hugely mass produced in so many devices (phones, tablets, etc.) unless Nintendo is planning to use some kind of ridiculously high resolution display, a 720p or even 1080p display is going to be cheap and so will a 4800-6000 MaH battery. These are not expensive components. They could probably really just keep the same 720p OLED panels they use in the Switch OLED model as its probably fairly cheap as Nintendo keeps ordering millions of them by 2023-2024 etc. it will be a dirt cheap component. |
Still a cost you won't have associated with the Playstation or Xbox.
The components themselves are also only part of the equation, building the power delivery, routing, PCB and controllers all costs as well.
| Soundwave said: A Tegra made for 2023 should be easily 5-6x more powerful than a Tegra X1 made in 2015 and modern Nvidia architectural features like DLSS via Tensor Cores is not really that big of a deal either, it's part of the package with modern Nvidia processor. There's nothing mind blowing about that. |
Agreed.
| Soundwave said: Nintendo also doesn't price hardware for the lowest common denominator any more, all the hardware makers have learned that premium pricing tiers are attractive as they yield higher profit margins over time. I don't think the Switch successor is going to be less than $399.99 when it launches and unless Nintendo makes stupid design or software decisions it will likely be sold out for a while. Probably 2 years after Super Switch/Switch 2 releases you'll get a cheap model option in the Super Switch Lite or Switch 2 Lite for like $249.99 maybe but by then the component costs will really have shrunk anyway. |
Inflation is reducing the purchasing power of a dollar the world over, higher prices is likely something we need to get used to.
Commodity parts like NAND and Ram are all over the shop... And TSMC/Samsung still has production bottlenecks to resolve.
A cost reduced variant would make economical sense, smaller/inferior display, no dock... That sort of thing.
Good console for the kids in the back of the car each.
| DonFerrari said: I believe Ninty lost money when they cut the price aggressively to compete with PS1 not long after launch. But there is no magic, performance cost money. |
100%.
It's about investing in performance to get the most bang for buck for your budget...
I.E. The Playstation 4 and Xbox One had similar budgets in terms of transistors and costs, the Playstation 4 didn't spend transistors on eSRAM which meant it could have more GPU pipelines, they then fed that with higher speed DRAM, which meant for similar component costs, the Playstation 4 was superior.
Nintendo has made a few flops in this aspect in the past, but also some rather smart choices.
| Chrkeller said: Likely we discussed this before and we simply disagree. If BotW2 were launching with a substantial hardware upgrade, Nintendo via PR would br hyping it by now... or at least announcing it. If there is an upgrade, it will.be minor. |
The trailer does showcase some engine upgrades like volumetrics... But that could be due to not designing the game around the WiiU hardware feature set.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
