16 November 2006
Ferry

PS3 loses up to $306 per unit, Xbox 360 profits $76 per sale

We’ve heard it all by now, delivery delays, technological blu-ray hurdles, missed production targets, high price tags, and recently cancelled pre-orders, we’ve all read the bad news regarding Sony’s new PS3.

But how about some good news? iSuppli’s dissection (check their details schematics) reveals the PS3 is an engineering masterpiece that sets a new high mark for computing price/performance, even when considering it is more expensive than its nearest rival, Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Sony is taking a considerable loss on each PlayStation 3 sold. Materials and manufacturing costs for the 20Gbyte model exceed the suggested retail price of $499 by a total of $306.85, iSuppli’s Teardown Analysis service estimates. For the 60Gbyte version, costs exceed the $599 price by $241.35.

In contrast, the HDD-equipped Xbox 360 has a manufacturing and materials total of $323.30, based on an updated estimate using costs in the fourth quarter of 2006. This total is $75.70 less than the $399 suggested retail price of the Xbox 360.

The conclusion is that the PS3 is not so expensive after all.

Even when compared to the competition, the console provides more processing power and capability than any consumer electronics device in history. Because of this, the PS3 is a great bargain, well worth its $599 price.

There you have it then, too bad you won’t be able to easily buy one due to massive shortages the rest of the year.

17 November 2006 08:48
hhunted

The PS3 may have more power or it may not but what it all boils down to is the games and at the moment “Gears of war” has set the benchmark to be beaten, Sony has it all to do when you look at all the AAA titles out very soon on the Xbox 360,as for these machines being able to play Blueray, HD etc, how many people actually used their Ps2 or Xbox to also play films ? very few I bet and you know why ? ask yourself “how long do you think the drive will last before the wonderfull READ ERROR messages begin to appear?..

17 November 2006 12:23
Brian H.

Has anyone else noted that to compare the Xbox 360 to the PS3 one would have to add the additional $199 cost of the HD-DVD player on top of the $399 premium system as the PS3 comes with the BlueRay player for High Def movies. This makes the systems closer in make and raises the Xbox 360s cost to the $600 range which is comperable to the PS3. Also, a launch time Microsoft was loosing close to the same amount of money on each Xbox 360 and only with the advance in hardware has their costs dropped which is the same thing that will happen to the PS3 over the next year. People need to put things into perspective.

18 November 2006 07:53
Jack

You can compare prices until the cows come home but the one big difference with the Xbox360 is that you have a “CHOICE” of adding the HD-DVD drive the format is not being forced on you just because you choose a certain game console,Microsoft have little to lose in this format war whereas it seems it’s all or nothing for Sonys Blueray, as commented above I would never use a console to play films either.

18 November 2006 10:55
Reeteshinator

Yeah! the ps3 IS cheap! And we can attach any USB keyboard and Webcam to it. so its even more SAVING thing

19 November 2006 00:49
Gabriel Cruz

Yeah, I personally agree with the fact that MS gives you the option on the HD-DVD add on, personally I don’t really need to see movies on the Blu-Ray format I can do with out them. And if you think graphics are all that matter in video games then get your self an alien ware PC not a PlayStation 3.

7 January 2007 13:19
DLD

“Erm, so, Sony is expecting me to buy it’s overpriced PS3 with such shitty games at launch?” - The thoughts of any normal person.

Seriously… why the f*ck would someone buy a PS3, when the Xbox 360 has better games and is cheaper?

Sony fanboys make me sick.

11 January 2007 17:37
kayne001

UMm PS3 just came out.

XBOX 360 when it came out was losing over $100 when it came out.

You should compare the PS3 losses per console at the end of this year. The fact that this article seems to forget this makes it seem like the authoer is a fanboy and just wrote this for other fanboys. Or maybe fanboys are just making this seem bad. I’m come on guys link to the news that showed 360’s losing over a hundred per console when it first came out, cause I’m 100% sure the 360 was losing money when it first came out.

All you fanboys that post figures etc fail to remember PS3 is nothing to Sony, Sony makes many many other products, and you all seem to forget about the previous generations. Get your heads out your

2 February 2007 15:23
Hitmanhacker

Yes sony has other products but hello there music business lost alot with that rootkit they had to replace 1 million laptop batteries plus the bluray players arent selling very well not only that there movie business is not doing that great

26 February 2007 16:49
OMFG_NOOBS

Quite simply:

XBOX 360>PS3

PS was known only for its RPGs, now MS owns FF. 360 also has halo biatches

28 March 2007 05:53
Yka

Jesus. Why someone count numbers like this?

Next to every damm device / business etc. you do make loses at the start. If you would count price / device at the first 10 pices coming out of the line it would be millions $ loses per device.

Sony & MS has likely plans to sell more than 10 pices and thus total production expectations should be considered to get any reasonable number.

As we see MS starts now to break even with XBox 360 HW sales and we will see the PS3 in similar state later… It is just marketing bull sh*t to say that HW makes loses.