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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U Apparently Still Being Sold At A Loss

WolfpackN64 on 29 January 2015

Well, they could still substitute the PowerPC 750 derived Espresso chip for a cut down version of a PowerPC e6500 chipset in order to jump to 28nm (from 45). But that might cost quite a bit to develop at this stage.



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fleischr on 29 January 2015

OP is jumping to conclusions without concrete data -- these are analysts saying 'production costs may rise in the future', not auditors reporting 'production costs have risen in the last quarter'



I predict NX launches in 2017 - not 2016

MoHasanie on 29 January 2015

I don't think that's true.



    

NNID: FrequentFlyer54

Soundwave on 29 January 2015
WolfpackN64 said:
Well, they could still substitute the PowerPC 750 derived Espresso chip for a cut down version of a PowerPC e6500 chipset in order to jump to 28nm (from 45). But that might cost quite a bit to develop at this stage.


Yeah the PowerPC 750 is likely a royal pain in their ass right now. They can't go to 28nm largely likely because of that, though they may have made some weird/stupid decisions on the GPU that prevent it too. 



Kerotan on 29 January 2015
WhiteEaglePL said:
Pretty certain it was no longer sold at a loss for a couple months now.....
http://mynintendonews.com/2014/05/08/nintendo-apparently-wont-be-making-a-loss-on-wii-u-anymore/

Because the costs of manufacturing them were in the previous year.wiiU sales were so low That they're only restarting production again now.



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baloofarsan on 29 January 2015

Since the Gamboy started Nintendos handheld empire they have been able to hide a lot behind those profits.
Do we know for sure N64 and GC was not sold at loss? There are reports that the Wii was supply constrained for the first couple of years due to the console was sold at a loss http://mynintendonews.com/2014/05/31/nintendo-apparently-supply-constrained-the-wii-as-was-losing-money-on-each-unit-sold/ .



hsrob on 29 January 2015
fleischr said:
All this refers to is that the manufacturing costs haven't been set for this year-- likely due to Nintendo still selling off the batch produced last year. Last year, was a record low production year and the units still remained profitable. If 2015 actually happens to be a peak year, the costs of production should actually decrease with volume.

Perhaps the report is alluding to the liklihood of a pricecut on the hardware?

Edit: never mind :)



WolfpackN64 on 29 January 2015
Soundwave said:
WolfpackN64 said:
Well, they could still substitute the PowerPC 750 derived Espresso chip for a cut down version of a PowerPC e6500 chipset in order to jump to 28nm (from 45). But that might cost quite a bit to develop at this stage.


Yeah the PowerPC 750 is likely a royal pain in their ass right now. They can't go to 28nm largely likely because of that, though they may have made some weird/stupid decisions on the GPU that prevent it too. 

Well, it's extremely derived from the Gecko, which had some major advantages in aiding the CPU for graphics calculations, so you would need to make some major changes to a new PowerPC chip.



kinisking on 29 January 2015

hope its not true. wii u needs to drop in price.



Ltd predictions by the time 9th Gen comes out

Ps4:110million

Xbox one :75 million( was 65) 

Wii u: 20 milliion

Soundwave on 29 January 2015
baloofarsan said:
Since the Gamboy started Nintendos handheld empire they have been able to hide a lot behind those profits.
Do we know for sure N64 and GC was not sold at loss? There are reports that the Wii was supply constrained for the first couple of years due to the console was sold at a loss http://mynintendonews.com/2014/05/31/nintendo-apparently-supply-constrained-the-wii-as-was-losing-money-on-each-unit-sold/ .

I guess the Wiimote cost a metric asston or maybe that was due to R&D costs?

I don't understand how they could be losing so much money if the Wii was basically a repackaged GameCube. Unless they were losing a ton of money on the GameCube too. 

Honestly they might need to go back to Yamauchi's playbook ... the NES and SNES both used relatively off the shelf components and Yamauchi hardballed SGI into giving them an even better price on a chip that was a bargain to begin with.