I mosly just pay attention to Sony. And I get the 400 dollar manufacturing cost from sony CEO when he said after fiscal financial report they still lose about 10% per console. If retail gets 5% of the 400 then sony sells at 380 a 10% loss of 380 is ~418. As far as I know I dont think either Nintendo or MS said anything like this.

must soften what?

u lost me on math

okay. Sony loses 10% per Ps3 sold. their main Ps3 sells for 400 dollars, but that 400 dollars isn't what Sony sells them for. That 400 includes retails cut of selling. If the retailers get 5% per ps3 sold that means they get 20 dollars. So Sony would sell them the Ps3's at about 380 dollars. 10% of 380 dollars is 38. So 380 + 38 = 418. So the cost to manufacture is about 420 dollars right now.

If i still lost you tell me exactly where so I can go more in detail at that specific part.

^ I got it smartass ^_^

I wasnt being smart. If you were still lost I was going to put in the situation as an example. You being the retailer and me being Sony.

^ lets do it anyways

Okay, lets say I'm the manufacturer(Sony) in this situation and you are the retailer(Best Buy).

Now I'm in the business of making baskets. Now, the basket costs about 20 dollars to make (Parts and labor) but I don't feel like my baskets are good enough to sell at that price so I sell them at a 10% loss for 18 dollars to the stores who would turn around and sell them to customers.

So, you buy my basket for 18 dollars. You aren't going to turn around and sell it for 18 dollars. You would lose money that way. You need to pay your employees. You are in the business of making money. You have a 5% jack up rate. So you sell the product for 19 dollars. You get 1 dollar extra from selling the basket and use probablly 50 cents to pay your employees. That would mean you got a 50 cent profit.

Now, for me to reach profitability since I lose money per basket I also make plastic fruit to place in the basket for decoration. My fruit costs 1 dollar to make but I sell it to you for 3 dollars. I'm making 2 dollar profit per fruit. Which means I need to sell one fruit per basket to break even.