After pulling apart the console and pricing out the individual components, iSupply has found that the PS3 is selling at a staggering loss.
“With the PlayStation 3, you are getting the performance of a supercomputer at the price of an entry-level PC,” said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli. All that power comes at a cost for Sony, according to the company. The $499 20GB console is selling at a loss of $306.85 US, while the 60GB version is losing $241.35 US per sale.
Given that the lower cost PS3 model is costing Sony more money to sell, it’s no surprise that the recent Japanese launch saw fewer 20GB models. According to Famitsu, the 20GB model shipped 33,800 units while the 60GB model sold 54,600 units. “The reason why the PlayStation 3 is so costly to produce is because it has incredible processing power,” Rassweiler said. “If someone had shown me the PlayStation 3 motherboard from afar without telling me what it was, I would have assumed it was for a network switch or an enterprise server.”
iSupply has also updated their findings on the Xbox 360 unit cost, claiming that Microsoft is now selling at a $75.70 profit for the premium system.
