Not a single person on this forum knows exactly how much it costs Sony to make a PS3.

Here's what people do, they say something along the lines of: "Well I went to bestbuy and saw a Bluray player for $200 and a Cell processor type thing for $150 and some mother board for $50 and wires for $30 bucks and plastic box for $80 and a GPU for $75, so you know Sony is gonna loose like $200 per console."

The truth is you have no idea how much Sony pays for a PS3 because you have never mass produced a piece of electronics. I assure you that the Bluray player in the PS3 costs a fraction of whatever the best price you can find on New Egg or whatever for a Bluray. That's what happens when you buy things wholesale. And Sony buys these things by the millions.

Remember when it cost like $850 to manufacture a 360? You wanna know how much it costs to make a PS3? About the same as a 360 plus under 50 bucks for a Bluray drive.

You are so correct in nobody know he exact details of what's what with cost of console production.  But what is very very clear is this....

- M$ made a profit and Sony post a HUGE loss

- While you can't draw a straight-line comparison between EDD and SCE, you can dephier the data to get some facts and figures, for example...

From MSFT latest Qtrly report:

"Xbox 360 platform and PC game revenue increased 16%, primarily as a result of an increase in Xbox 360 platform sales, partially offset by decreased revenue per Xbox 360 console due to price reductions during the past 12 months. We shipped 1.7 million Xbox 360 consoles during the third quarter of fiscal year 2009, compared with 1.3 million Xbox 360 consoles during the third quarter of fiscal year 2008."

So, while the price cut reduced revenue from per console, overall, revenue increased 16%...so the price cut worked, and M$ didn't lose money on it.  Not to mention the fact that console sales increase  400K Y-O-Y and with top selling titles due later in this year, the mostly mean greater sales of those software titles, based on the current attach ratio of 360.

From SNE latest Qtrly report:

"Sales decreased 18.0% year-on-year (an 8% decrease on a local currency basis) to ¥1,053.1 billion ($10,746 million)."

Now, this is the PS brand vs. the Xbox brand, not the 360 vs. the PS3, but here is a comparison that is closer to the mark...

"

"

"We shipped 10 million Xbox 360 consoles during the first nine months of fiscal year 2009 compared with 7.5 million Xbox 360 consoles during the first nine months of fiscal year 2008"

Bear in mind that MSFT FY ends in June, but with 10 million already sold in 9 months, vs. PS3 taking 12 months...now of course the 360's price cut helped, but regardless, M$ made the right move in cutting the price when they did, and they still increased revenue.

Moving forward, it would seem that PS3 has a price cut in the works, but M$ expects it, and will provide a counter to that, so realistically, I don't expect Sony to get the 30% increase in sales this year that they expect, since that would have to almost certainly come at the expense of Wii and 360.  To add to this fact, we are ALREADY a month and a half into the FY for Sony, and sales from April and May are seriously lagging Y-O-Y, so I'm to reach that goal...PS3 would need something like 36-40% performance for the rest of the year...WOW!  Also we can put a figure to that number…

A $100 price cut for the PS3 would cost - $339 million in lost revenue in console (3.39 million consoles, since PS is already 389k console behind this fiscal year), IF they cut the price today, and the picture gets worst with every passing week of sales.  I project that by  E3, if that is when the cut is announced, they will be 500K behind, if not more.  Of course, I’m pointing to lost revenue of the console, and I’m not factoring in increased sale of software from Sony exclusive….not PS3 exclusive…but Sony Exclusives, since that truly delivers the bag for the buck that can boost revenue. 

So, what does all this point to…a ugly remaining 2009 for PS3 and Sony, if everything goes according to plan, and if things don’t…Sony might be looking at a billion dollar loss for gaming, which would be a disaster for working on innovating for the next console, not to mention the likely of Sony’s inability to follow thru on the 10-year strategy for the PS3.

The point is that Sony doesn't need to worry about its next console since its exclusives are already making the 360 look dated. In fact I cant wait for the xbox Bluray version so we can get even better multiplats.

SONY will be gone within 5 years

the Playstation brand which helped them to the top in the end will lead to their eventual destruction.

Too much has been lost, if they doa $100 price cut on PS3, its over for them profit wise

 Sony will be gone in 5 years? whatever, your stupidity amazes me

hahahha i cant wait for when sony turns this around to see peoples faces lol. and to all those who think M$ can and will lower the price this year are pretty much wrong.

Well...losing a 1bln a year is surely NOT a way to turn things around, and I don't see things getting better.

we will make a thread about it and rub it in thier faces

Huh? MS are dropping the price very soon, along with memory capacity, which will make it parable to the Wii.  This has been a price war between corporates who are willing to undercut each other, ofcourse Sony can't do  this any longer.

Errrrrr....okay if you say.