Weird because Sony is making money on PS5 even before price increase
Sony is now reportedly making more money off sales of its PS5 than it takes to build them, according to Bloomberg. That means Sony is no longer selling
www.androidheadlines.com
That may have changed now after costs for components went up, but I imagine they definitely aren't taking a $100 loss on either model, let alone $200.
I'm guessing it comes down mostly to what companies MS are sourcing certain components from, like the PSU, capacitors, battery, wiring, heatsink etc. That, and/or what specific factories they are having their systems assembled at and their business contracts/relationships with those locations, what distribution & freighting services they are using for shipping units, warehouses for storing them, etc.
Maybe Sony just has better relationships with their suppliers in that respect than Microsoft does with theirs (either those they share with Sony or those that the two differ on), and can work out better pricing deals. I'm not factoring AMD into any of this btw, because I don't think Sony's pricing advantage with AMD would be significantly better than Microsoft's, though differences in APU wafer sizes could matter.
Something else though that some people probably don't want to consider is that the $100 - $200 loss per system COULD be in relation to unsold systems sitting in warehouses and within the channels. If the system's been made but it's taking too long to sell, that basically works its way out into a fiscal loss. Needing to discount systems rampantly over extended periods of time could also be costing them money, something I personally think has been happening with the Series S in multiple markets (even here in America) since at least August. You can find those regularly getting discounted for $279, $249 even $229 at some places and the deals just seem to keep recurring regularly.
Considering the stated purpose for Series S, compared to the total likely Series sales so far (where even though they're trending ahead of 360 and XBO, it's not by the amount you think it'd of been considering how the Series S has been positioned and advertised within the Xbox console ecosystem), I'm thinking the likelihood of unsold Series S units is probably the main contributor to the purported losses Phil's talking about. Obviously, they would never confirm or validate this in an interview, but it's an interesting coincidence.
So 100 bucks on the s and 200 on the x? is that how the subsiding works?
does that 3tflop wafer really cost so much more at the high end?.
No, I don't think either costs that much to produce. Honestly thinking the purported losses are coming from unsold inventory, primarily of Series S units.
It kind of gives some context to the constant sales deals for the system outside of the holiday season, because component costs differences in non-APU or RAM things would not add $100 or $200 in expenses to take a hit on. Even the differences in APUs wouldn't account for those kind of losses on their own.
So I'm thinking it has to come down to a notable amount of unsold inventory, mainly of Series S units.