R&D, manufacturing, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing...I think 149 is quite fair to start with. No one is forced to buy one.

wow MS are making a big profit on kinect

How much?

That's about $50 more than what they could have feasibly sold Kinect for. 

That $150 price is based upon an estimate that they will reach 100% sell through at the max rate of production MS could deliver to retail through the holidays given the amount of time required to have the product ready for a holiday season 2010 launch. It was a tight window as R&D continued very close to the start of production of the finished product. 

In short, I think MS projected product shortages over the holiday launch season, even at max production (for the amount of time they had available to set up initial production) which gives them the leverage to charge more than what they might have had they had more time to set up production at higher rates. 

And MS doesn't usually do this. Everyone knows they initially sold the Xbox 360 at a loss despite the first year shortages. 

Do you have any evidence of this? I've looked through news reports, and they are all either unspecific or they say it's for the holiday season alone. Where was it said that it's over a longer period of time?

The PS3 initially cost an estimated $840 to produce. They were sold at over a $200 loss per unit. 

The Xbox 360 initially cost an estimated $550 to produce. They were sold at a $150 loss per unit. Despite inventory shortages during the debut year. 

Well, and that cost to develop it - all those wages and shit. Alternatively, all the lost revenue that could have been generated from selling said game, or a different game made by the same team

Assumed. I don't think there is any evidence to support "for a longer time" which is what, until the end of Q4 2010? Q4 2011?

Generally speaking, announced marketing budgets for a product cover the initial sales period, but I'm sure there will be those who assume that in this one special case, for the sake of their argument, that budget covers marketing costs for anywhere between now and the end of this year until end of the product cycle. 

Because if they actually tried to sell a PS3 at $900-100 no one would have bought one at all and max production would be sitting in warehouses. Same with the X360 if it was sold at $600-700 while the Wii was sold at $250.

People need to get this in their heads. Sony & Microsoft were not looking out for you. They were both looking out for their bottom line with maximum profit and profit potential. However, Nintendo screwed both of them by sweeping in with a $250 system that made billions.

They don't show them in their financials, but big marketing campaigns from Sony and Nintendo tend to be more than an order of magnitude less than that. Considering that Sony NDD entire costs over the christmas quarter last year were $2 billion, and that includes Vaio etc., the burden of proof is definitely on you if you're suggesting they spend something like quarter of their costs marketing PS3/Move etc.