Pemalite said:
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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- I mean consumer CD-drives were $100, but no way were massive corporations like Sony or even Nintendo paying $100/drive (this would 1/2 the entire price of the Playstation in 1996). I mean even as a consumer you would likely get a pretty sharp discount if for some reason you ordered 10 million CD drives even back then, lol. Nintendo should've used the delay of the N64 from 1995 to fall 1996 to add an optical drive. Even if they did something "Nintendo-ey" like use propietary mini-CDs in a protective caddy, that would've offered them a cheap format with 200+MB of storage ... would've resulted in a ton more happy 3rd party partners.
- If the Switch successor launches at $399.99 ... that's plenty of overhead for a pretty nice chip (like say ... a Tegra 239). There's no chance this thing will be $299.99 even when the Switch OLED itself is $350 and selling just fine.
Even with inflation and economic slowdown ... the game industry seems to be doing just fine. The Switch is selling well for a system its age, you still really can't find PS5's on storeshelves even after a price *increase* (lol), and it sounds like the XBox is outselling the XBox One. People still want to be entertained.
If Nintendo has a successor hardware ready, likely they won't be able to manufacture enough for demand anyway, so they can afford a higher price point.
