Topic: How much will the new hardware cost companies?

[NRevolutionR]

Ok, soooooooooooo........................

Apparently the Xbox 360 will cost my post is a train wreck $375 to build and sell for $300 according to Gameindustrybiz.

Rumors point at the PS3 costing between $430 and $480 to build and Sony will sell it for $400.

And lastly, I think the REV will cost around $180 to $220 for Nintendo to build and they will sell it for $200.


I would both  like yall's opinions, and would really like it if ya'll would provide some further evidence if you know any.



I wright so poorly somtimes

[jasonditz]

The numbers sound pretty good... although if the Rev costs $220 I think you'd more likely see a $229-$249 launch price. Nintendo doesn't like taking a loss on hardware sales.  

[Spak-Spang]

I thought I read somewhere that Microsoft stated they were selling the system for "around" $350.00

So I would predict it the production costs are higher than that right now.  I would say it is probably costing Microsoft around $375-400.00  And I predict a $349.99 price tag.  With that price Microsoft could sell the unit for those who want the next system, and still sell Xboxs and games for those not ready to upgrade and pontentially drop the price when the PS3 releases.

Who knows how much the PS3 costs, but I would assume it must at least be the higher than the XB0X 360.  So lets say $400.00 to $425.00  Sony will make it available for whatever Microsoft is selling their system or alittle more.  So lets predict $350-$375 price range.


Ok.  Now nobody knows anything about the Revolution except that Nintendo wants to make a system that quiet and budget conscience.  Nowing that it will be cheaper than the other systems...but is that $299, $250, or $199???  Obviously the 299 sounds too high and the 199 too low.  But you get the point...we just don't know.  

We do know that it will not be as powerful as the other systems.  It just can't be and maintain a cheaper price point...but that is ok.  The Revolution has a few secret weapons.  1)backwards combat. 2)Price 3)Revolutionary controller, 4)Easier to develop for (small developer friendly)

[KDR_11k]

The GC cost 200 at launch, I don't see why the Rev couldn't match that. Sure, it's next-gen but so was the Cube.

[vudu]

Quote
I thought I read somewhere that Microsoft stated they were selling the system for "around" $350.00

Actually, I believe J Allard said "around $300".

[Spak-Spang]

Vudu:  Yeah your right.  I'm sorry.

So I would predict at $300-$350 price point then.  Not really that bad.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Don't forget your favorite lovely forced bundles at launch, including a copy of the much anticipated Azurik 360!  

[KDR_11k]

He said somewhere near the price of the first XBox, not any specific number. He also talked about the X360 being backwards compatible with the XBox and said no console is completely compatible so "near" could mean 500.

[stevey]

I think the x1.5 price will be $360.

[KDR_11k]

That's what pretty much everyone thinks but if Sony is opting for a much higher price we'll see MS do the same.

[King of Twitch]

$200 was a very nice price, it's baffling it didn't do better. With the Rev's extra features and ports it might be another $20-30, still not too bad.


Last gen placed the barrier at 300 and I thought that was nuts, but no gen is like the previous one...


....but i still think 400 is nuts

[Spak-Spang]

After everything I have read about Revolution.

I am actually betting on the $200.00 price point.  All the other extra stuff the Revolution is adding shouldn't make the price too much more expensive.

I am also expecting no jump in pricing for games for Revolution games...at least not for 1st party.  So I expect to be buying $49.99 games for Revolution instead of the $69.99-79.99 projected prices of Xbox 360 and PS3 games.  Will this make a huge difference?  

I think Nintendo could price themselves as a cheaper alternative for nongamers, and as the perfect second console to own.  You can easily buy 2 games for prices of 1.5 on the other system.  Saving money is a pretty big motivator.  

[Galford]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it will cost Sony $600 a shot to buld the PS3.

I still can't fathom why Sony included 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
One 100MBit will be what most would even need.

The Rev??? Who the hell knows...

[TMW]

Yeah...Ninty won't let it go for more than $200.  Any more would start to be prohibitive.

Besides, considering they can start selling older games right out of the box at 100% profit, they could probably get away with selling the Rev at Near Cost.  

[MattVDB]

Wait wait.  What if this really happened?  What if Nintendo did leave out HD support, but in doing so allowed for 49.99 software.  Third party games cross platform would sell loads more for 49.99 then they would for 69.99.  Would you really pay 20 bucks more per game to play HD?  If I could get the SD game, and possibly have it do more graphically, for 20 bucks less, then by golly that is the one that I would pick.  The lack of HD could actualy very well play into their favor.

[KDR_11k]

Why would SD games be cheaper than HD games? Game cost is not about production costs, it's about what you believe the customer will pay. US Americans have been conditioned to buy games at 50 dollars and because of the price fixing noone sees a reason to lower their prices until they are desperate.

[Spak-Spang]

KDR:  That is partially true.  But If Nintendo decided to release their games for the Nintendo Revolution for $49.99 then most 3rd parties would follow suit at $49.99-59.99 to compete with Nintendo's prices.  

However, they may still release games for 69.99-79.99 for the Xbox360 and Sony PS3.

Why would it cost less.  If adding HD textures, and animation routines and cinematics add to the production costs then 3rd parties will have to raise prices to next generation software to break even at the same product saturation.  

If Nintendo can keep costs down of games to around the same prices of this level or less then prices can stay the same as they are this generation.

And each generation gamers get used to new prices for games, and each generation developers have a chance to raise prices, but they usually don't unless they feel the costs of the game develop require prices to be raised to make a profit.

[KDR_11k]

Except those animations have to be done anyway (and they don't get more detailled in HD), the textures are usually painted at 512x512 already (then downsampled to 128x128 for the GC) and the cinematics would be there one way or another, it just takes a few days more to render the final version for hires. The resolution isn't going to increase the dev costs, the more powerful GPU is. The textures are even less of an issue with normalmaps that are generated from hipoly meshes anyway. Then it's just a rendering option. The normalmaps themselves are the issue. Dev costs CANNOT be kept constant unless you want your games to look like GC games. Mark Rein of Epic claimed they can work with only 1.5 times the budget but they are an extreme, Epic houses some of the most talented "grunts" of the industry.

[Spak-Spang]

KDR:  Yeah it will only truly help developers that create Exclusive Revolution content, which will probably only be smaller developers and not larger developers and publishers.

I meant to add that in my above comment.

However, it still holds true that just because the work still has to be done, that if the prices for Revolution games set cheaper, then the mark up will be still lower than Xbox 360 and PS3 games.  

I don't know about the costs and all.  But, something about Nintendo's Revolution is making it easier to develop for...and HD must be adding more to costs than just the intial hardware costs...so some how it must cost more for development.  

We will see though.  The revolution Launch is still over a year away and longer if you agree with the commonly held belief of the November launch.  A boost in power to the Revolution could occur, HD support, and more if Nintendo feels that Microsoft is doing the right thing with the Xbox 360.

[couchmonkey]

I'm not convinced Revolution will be that much cheaper to develop for than the other systems.  There may be a slight difference if Nintendo doesn't emphasize graphics as much, but if I wanted to develop the best looking graphics I could on Revolution, I'd probably spend 90% of the time I would developing the best looking graphics on either of the other systems.   I'm guessing Nintendo plans to save money is in developing simpler, less graphics-intensive products, which is different from making the same product cheaper to develop.

As for game prices, I hear a lot of rumours about them going up, but my hopeful side says that any companies raising their prices will have to reconsider after a few months.  I'm interested to see how Nintendo prices its console.  This generation showed us that $200 vs. $300 wasn't much of an advantage.  I was shocked by that...maybe it was just because the others included DVD, but it was still pretty surprising.

[KDR_11k]

Yeah it will only truly help developers that create Exclusive Revolution content,

I'm arguing that not even that is true. Exclusive games will still need animations that update every frame and involve the entire body, they will still need all the content for the cutscenes and they will still need larger textures before you know exactly how much memory you will have available. Not that the texture size differs that much, usually they go for the largest that will fit into memory since the camera can get close to the surface.