Like when they bundled the Kinect or that time when they made that god-awfull DRM announcment to the public?

OT: there are way more things that can affect console prices, and the processor is just one of them. Hell, I would argue that currency devaluation has a higher saying in the price then processor manufacturing costs.

The industry has hit a wall with 28nm ... The reasons for transitioning to a smaller process technology had meant that you would also get a cost reduction benefit even if your design had not intended it but since that's all gone it'll be tough for chip manufacturers too to sell the new wafers. 

This is what Bob Colwell had meant when we needed to be prepared for an industry where there would only be a 10% improvement from the last iteration. Going below 28nm had meant that despite gaining double the transistor density, all of it is useless since it doesn't translate into any cost savings. Sure we could stack chips and try to improve other things out of the scope but these are also band aid problems that won't make up for the lost exponential growth.

The price of the xbox one will drop by the end of 2014, and the ps4 will drop a few months later probably.

I think we will get a 50 $ pricedrop or game this holliday and a 299 price next holliday in 2015.

Both consoles will start to sell less than previous generations and try to loger the price.

I'm pretty sure that Microsoft is run by engineers so I do dare say that they are smarter than the rest of us ... 

Currency devaluation may be a thing but have our wages increased significantly too ? 

"Smarter" is a broad term. Some psychologists believe that theree are over 150 different intelligence types, so while they might be "smarter" on technical stuff, we could probably point out huge marketing startegy mistakes on their part, as everyday joes Dont undersell yourself There is probably a genius deep down in you

And currency devaluation I meant it on  a global scale. No matter what, I for one, wont see a huge difference in price, even if they drop it to 300. We are allways fucked, when it comes to console pricing in Romania

What do we know about the consoles making a profit currently?

If I recall correctly, PS4 is selling for a profit and XBO w/ Kinect is selling for a profit (haven't heard anything about without, but I assume it would be profitable).

Even still, I don't think anyone expects it to go under 300$ any time soon. At 300$ could happen, but its unlikely to go below.

The engineers might be geniuses but its not them that decide things.  if you ever worked for a major corp youd know just how dumb the top brass can be.  Ms X1 lauch proved that the people at the top are quite out of touch and made simply moronic decisions.  

The PS4 only started to make profit and the X1 was already making profit. What I'm trying to say is that it'll be $300 and over for the next 5 years. That's how long I'm willing to guess that we won't see either of them pushing below the $300 mark. 

The APU is the most expensive thing on that board as far as sony is concerned. But these things doesn't really cost that much to actually make. Haven't you ever heard this saying about chip manufacturing? "The first chip costs $2B, every chip after that costs $10".

As it stands, sony is paying AMD way more than that chipset actually cost to manufacture, but thats necesary for a certain number of million chips. After that AMD will pass some of those savings over to sony. Thats usually how these things work.  So even if manufacturing processes haven't been improved, its possible for AMD to rediuce what sony pays them by $25.

And with MS going insane, sony weren't stupid for going insane and dropping the price like they did. If they didnt they would have completely lost last gen. And if MS drops price to remain competitive then thats not stupid either.There is really no resason not to. And if anything, with how quickly MS dropped the price of the XB1 (if we can actually call it a price drop), it just goes to show that MS is very ready to drop prices if they have to.