Microsoft Trims Xbox 360 Manufacturing Costs by 40pct Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Microsoft Trims Xbox 360 Manufacturing Costs by 40pct Posted by XanTium | November 22 00:05 EST

From xbitlabs.com: [QUOTE] Microsoft Corp., the world's leading maker of software, is earning money selling the Xbox 360 hardware, according to updated teardown analysis from research firm iSuppli. The information means that the software giant has managed to lower the price of its latest game console by nearly 40% in one year. According to iSuppli's most recent analysis, the premium version of the Xbox 360 game machine equipped with hard disk drive 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. Even though it is obvious that Microsoft still has to subtract freight, toll, retail partner's profit and other possible charges, it is highly likely that Microsoft has either managed to reduce its loss to minimal, or is making a tiny profit selling the $399 flavour of the Xbox 360. A year ago the total bill of materials (BOM) cost for the Xbox 360 Premium, including hard disk, the DVD drive, enclosures, the Radio Frequency (RF) receiver board, power supply, wireless controller, cables, literature, and packaging, reached $525, well above the retail price of $399, according to iSuppli. Considering the up to date BOM, Microsoft has managed to reduce the pricing of its console by over 38.5%. [/QUOTE] Read More: xbitlabs.com

[zikronix]

many sony has a long way to go.

[ILLusions0fGrander]

funny a guy in line for the wii told me this at 5 in the morning, i thought he was full of shit :/

first step towards a price drop down the road

This post has been edited by ILLusions0fGrander: Nov 22 2006, 05:43 AM

[kics]

this means for me that is going to be more availability for the machine cus i dont think that the price is dropping anytime soon....

[kidkinetix]

this means for me that is going to be more availability for the machine cus i dont think that the price is dropping anytime soon....

I sure wouldn't drop the price if my 'year old' console still had the best graphics for ports

[antiav]

This is strange because I read at least 2 different articles <2 weeks ago on http://digg.com/ saying the exact opposite thing, who are these analysists?

[leo5111]

i forget where i read it but they were talking to a MS exec a while back and he admitted they had managed to cut production costs signifigantly

This post has been edited by leo5111: Nov 22 2006, 07:23 AM

[Worseley]

Unless Blueray demand really picks up I think this will be the main thing leading to the death of Sony in the Games industry. I wouldn't doubt if the 360 will be 300 for a premium next Xmas and I can't imagine Sony being anywhere near that price in 2 or 3 years.

[Pheidias]

That they have managed to drop production costs is all true, but they aren't making money of the consoles yet since they still have a lot of problems with the consoles. So for every sold console they need one extra to be able to give out when the first one breaks. This has been "confirmed" in a previous article.

[flashfreak]

Good work MS, good for you.

[Antinous-ODY]

i don't trust anything i read on digg or shoutwire.. most of the stories are so ridiculous

[Vipernig]

Thats a good job on MS's parts. I dont remeberif the switch to 65nm has been done yet or not. Sony is in bad shape BTW. I am all for Wii60 kicking the PS3 in its teeth while it is down. Damn you sony and your arrogance.

[BinkY_BMF]

I wonder if they have made any revisions to the main (mother) board to assist in this cost cutting... does this start the v1.0 -v1.1 of the boards as in the original Xbox?

Comparing a 1.0 xbox to the 1.6 xbox, there's hardly as many chips inside and the board seems rather sparse.

I cant see home-brew mod chips catching up with this unless the current revision has almost been modded, and I dont mean the DVD firmware here...


Cheers

BinkY

[luther349]

of course the parts are cheaper now the tec on a 360 is a year old now. abought the only thing on a 360 that never relly changes in cost is the harddrive. but everything else gets cheaper to make as time passes.

[bucko]

Again I don't believe this analysis point of view. Do they work at m$, no? Were do they get the info from? They don't say.

Imho the only time m$ will start making money is when they release the 45nm CPU version.