Wii is actually the first Nintendo platform that doesn't bear the Nintendo brand. They have completely seperate ad campaigns for Nintendo DS and Wii, DS ads are not advertising Wii. If we were to apply that standard let's add Windows phone with XBox Live into Kinect's budget..

You keep bringing Sony into it, but you have yet to provide any evidence. Sony Networked Products and Services spent $2 Billion in total during the last holiday quarter, which includes Vaio, Walkman and Sony Media Software & Services. You're saying quarter of their costs were marketing PS3 alone?

Also, Nintendo was profitable last quarter, they made the tiniest loss over six months. EDD on the other hand hides their administration costs in another MS division.

Not really. You have to consider the overall development costs of the unit. For an early unit like yours the development costs outweigh the bill of material costs. This is the reason why the unit was released with off the shelf parts and a complicated internal layout with 3 sandwiched boards. Over the next year or two they will simplify the unit and combine a few of the chips into more complicated ASIC designs as the research and development is paid off and the bill of materials becomes a more dominant force. This is the reason why older technology is cheap compared to newer technology, it is definately not strictly because of the cost of making the materials used.

I just want to know where I can buy these components for so cheap.

Coming from the company that sells wireless adapters for $100 and HDDs for over half the price of their cheapest console, this doesn't surprise me at all.

But I will LOL, once again, at the fact that they're suing Motorola for them selling their products at too high of a cost to Microsoft. Sweet irony

That's not bad, although before anyone assumes MS is therefore raking it in a few other things need to be factored in.

First, what is retail markup?  Retails want their slice of the profits.  So if you pay $149 for Kinect an immediate chunck of that goes straight to the retailer.

Whatever's left goes to MS.

However, in addition to the $56 there will be assembly costs, shipping costs, transportation, etc.

So, while this does mean MS should be able to make a nice profit (for an electronic device) it doesn't mean the difference between $149 at retail and $56 for parts is all going to MS.  They will only see a part of that difference.

As it was said before, no one is forcing you to buy it at that price. After buying it myself, I believe 149 is more than a fair price for Kinect.

It may cost 60 bucks to make when looking at components but R&D and man hours spent on getting this thing to market were not free.

People are starting to expect everything to be sold at a loss when it comes to consoles and that is the only thing that is...

Not cool.

they are selling it for £130 but it costs around £34 to make so theyre making more than double

Have you listened to anything anyone has said in here?

I had that impression too. Although it does feel we're moving a little past that stage. I think a large part of it had to do with a protest at how Nintendo sold so many units at a profit. However im sure when the next generation rolls around we'll have consoles sold at a profit with additional services also sold at a profit on top of that. Sony pioneering and then succumbing to their own razor/blade model will see to that.

Thats a fair point about what people expect. but remember theres been a few things reported like not being able to sit down, not being able to recognise people of darker skin tones clearly, a lag between the player and the on screen response, and not being able to wear baggy clothes or skirts, and a need for specific levels of lighting.

so imo yes people shouldnt expect to get everything so cheap, but still is justifiable for kinect to have those problems mentioned and still charge consumers more then triple the production cost?? this is a debatable issue and i dont agree that the cost is justified because of those problems, however R&D costs are also important to consider and i have no information about that unfortunatly.