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Snakeyes · Mar 25, 2011

I did a quick search and did not see this posted.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2011-03-24-cost-of-3ds-parts-estimated-at-under-GBP62

A report by Eurogamer has indicated that the estimated cost of the components of a 3DS to Nintendo is £61.76, with the price to retailers thought to be around £170, a margin of £108.

You can read the full article at the link.

Smiles and Cries · Mar 25, 2011

damn the regular DS must cost 5 bucks to make then

Cerebral Assassin · Mar 25, 2011

Snakeyes said:
You can read the full article at the link.

Not without registering.

Deku · Mar 25, 2011

I did not know Nintendo owned Bothan slaves who assemble these 3DS units for nothing.

flyinpiranha · Mar 25, 2011

I feel ripped off!!

posted from my iPhone

iNvid02 · Mar 25, 2011

you can pickup a 3ds for about £175 using a voucher code at price minister, still not low enough for me (£150 is what i'd spend), but im waiting for version 2 with a decent battery

Drkirby · Mar 25, 2011

Can you just copy and paste the artical.

Snakeyes · Mar 25, 2011

Cerebral Assassin said:
Not without registering.

It's free though.

Mama Robotnik · Mar 25, 2011

Going from (approx.) £62 to £230 is one hell of a profit margin.

Too much of a profit margin for me, in fact. Will buy when its closer to half that price and has some software I'm actually interested in.

Will probably be waiting for a while admittedly, but luckily my Steam backlog ain't going anywhere.

Matt · Mar 25, 2011

Or you could, you know, link to the original article from Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-24-why-the-nintendo-3ds-costs-GBP230-article

mclaren777 · Mar 25, 2011

Considering that I wouldn't even spend $100 for a 3DS, this seems about right in terms of manufacturing cost.

sn00zer · Mar 25, 2011

Doesnt include cost of production, shipping, or any number of factors.

Paracelsus · Mar 25, 2011

Matt said:
Or you could, you know, link to the original article from Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-24-why-the-nintendo-3ds-costs-GBP230-article

Quite the sophism right there.

Snakeyes · Mar 25, 2011

Drkirby said:
Can you just copy and paste the artical.

I would if it was sure that I wouldn't get banned for it. In any case, the highlight of the article is in the OP. The rest mentions the profit margins on the DSi and how little profit retailers are making in all of this.

DXB-KNIGHT · Mar 25, 2011

This is really a biased article, what about the hard working Pikmins in each 3DS and all the miracles and magic Nintendo used to make you see 3D without glasses.

Smiles and Cries · Mar 25, 2011

Of course, on top of the raw materials there are also a number of other costs to consider, such as labour, marketing, packaging and distribution, not to mention those sizeable R&D costs to recoup. Naturally, Nintendo won't reveal what its margin is or what it charges retailers per unit. However, a reliable retail source tells Eurogamer the going price is £170.73.

yeah let's wait before we stone Nintendo on this one

Majine · Mar 25, 2011

DXB-KNIGHT said:
This is really a biased article, what about the hard working Pikmins in each 3DS and all the miracles and magic Nintendo used to make you see 3D without glasses.

You mean Sharp?

MaddenNFL64 · Mar 25, 2011

Well there's also manufacturing the thing, so that adds cost. But damn. That leaves $150 to cover stuff outside of the materials. Nintendo must be making bank.

surly · Mar 25, 2011

Mama Robotnik said:
Going from (approx.) £62 to £230 is one hell of a profit margin.

Most of the big retailers have been selling it for under £200 delivered. The £62 figure is just for raw materials, so it doesn't include research and development, manufacturing costs, storage costs, shipping costs, import tax and so on, and the UK selling price also includes 20% VAT as well as the retailer's margin. It's not as simple as saying £230-£62 = greedy Nintendo!

Corky · Mar 25, 2011

RnD
( Parts )
Manufacture
Logistics
Marketing

etc

= nintendo not really making a profit of X ( high, newsworthy profit ) per device

Stabby McSter · Mar 25, 2011

WE'RE BEING ROBBED!

McHuj · Mar 25, 2011

Certainly very believable. There's nothing except for the screen in the DS that would be expensive. And even the screen is probably on the order of 20-30 dollars to make.

Apath · Mar 25, 2011

flyinpiranha said:
I feel ripped off!!

posted from my iPhone

iPhones can cost $50...?

1-D_FTW · Mar 25, 2011

Isn't the proper conversation rate more like 85 dollars? That is Euro, right?

Saw this on Eurogamer yesterday. Re-enforces everything I thought. Pachter can suck it for convincing them to go as high as they did. I wouldn't even mind the razer blade model, but Nintendo is putting a huge markup on the razer and the razer cartridges. The shovelware selling for 40 dollars is much more outrageous.

JWong · Mar 25, 2011

Corky said:
RnD
( Parts )
Manufacture
Logistics
Marketing

etc

Duct tape for taping 3xDS together.

PantherLotus · Mar 25, 2011

Wait 'till you find out that Intel and AMD are sitting on chips a couple generations ahead for exactly the same reason Nintendo has priced the 3DS the way they have.

Hint: R&D is expensive as fuck.

Drkirby · Mar 25, 2011

They give no justification for the cost of parts, are we just supposed to take their word for it? I want to know what they think the 3D screen costs.

DXB-KNIGHT · Mar 25, 2011

Majine said:
You mean Sharp?

Didn't Nintendo patent the LCD tech?

Shiggie · Mar 25, 2011

Its not like Nintendo has to pay people to put those parts together...

ShockingAlberto · Mar 25, 2011

It's funny, because these articles (and threads) appear every time a new console comes out and someone does a component breakdown list with an estimate.

Then there's like two or three pages of righteous indignation, then it dies down because people eventually realize it doesn't actually mean shit, and it gets trotted out by console war soldiers down the line and then mostly ignored.

So I'll just say this.

Did you know the games you buy don't actually cost that much to manufacture? It's just a fucking disc! Not sure why you'd pay more than 30c for any of them.

Majine · Mar 25, 2011

Shiggie said:
Its not like Nintendo has to pay people to put those parts together...

Reggie builds all 3DS himself in his garage.

FINALBOSS · Mar 25, 2011

I bet the 3DS has a TON of blood materials in it.

Gamer @ Heart · Mar 25, 2011

sn00zer said:
Doesnt include cost of production, shipping, or any number of factors.

and marketing, chain mark ups, and R&D. Dont forget people.

Corky · Mar 25, 2011

ShockingAlberto said:
Did you know the games you buy don't actually cost that much to manufacture? It's just a fucking disc! Not sure why you'd pay more than 30c for any of them.

omg 14000% profit!

BannedEpisode · Mar 25, 2011

People. Seriously.

A company cannot be faulted for making a profit and I would hazard a guess that things like labor and marketing add to the total production cost.

GDGF · Mar 25, 2011

Deku said:
I did not know Nintendo owned Bothan slaves who assemble these 3DS units for nothing.

Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

1-D_FTW · Mar 25, 2011

PantherLotus said:
Wait 'till you find out that Intel and AMD are sitting on chips a couple generations ahead for exactly the same reason Nintendo has priced the 3DS the way they have.

Hint: R&D is expensive as fuck.

Hint: AMD and Intel actually develop incredibly complicated silicon. Nintendo just takes existing harware and slaps it together (or in the case of the Sharp 3D screen, has them gimp the resolution to as low as they can make it before losing effectiveness.)

Majine said:
Reggie builds all 3DS himself in his garage.

Reggie shakes his pockets loose of pennies and pelts them at the Chinese workers who assemble them. That's their pay. It's a mad scramble.

diffusionx · Mar 25, 2011

1-D_FTW said:
Pachter can suck it for convincing them to go as high as they did. I wouldn't even mind the razer blade model, but Nintendo is putting a huge markup on the razer and the razer cartridges.

If Nintendo didn't do it, then the scalpers would. Why shouldn't Nintendo get what people are willing to pay for it?

If there's a value of $250 on the 3DS, it quite frankly does not matter one fucking bit how much or how little it costs to build it.

jman2050 · Mar 25, 2011

I'm wondering if the higher-than-usual price for this handheld can be directly traced to manufacturing more than anything else. I imagine since they went with what I understood to be a brand new borderline experimental manufacturing process that it would be more expensive than usual, but I'm no expert on these things so...

Dreamwriter · Mar 25, 2011

Realize that it cost many, many millions of dollars to develop the 3DS over many years - they've been working on the 3DS since at least 2007. The cost of parts alone doesn't come anywhere near what the 3DS cost Nintendo to make. And of course there's still manufacturing costs, shipping, storage, fees, taxes. And then advertising is a HUGE cost. Those store displays, those cost money to design and are each hand-made, delivered, setup, those are pricey. And retail stores charge a large fee to have space in their store taken up by those too, and any end-cap special displays.

And that's just the start, when you realize someone had to come up with dev kits, the software, localizing everything including dev kits into many languages, customer support, developer support, new manufacturing plants, testing, health studies...

a176 · Mar 25, 2011

Shiggie said:
Its not like Nintendo has to pay people to put those parts together...

you seem to be under the impression it costs money to manufacture things in asia

Rad- · Mar 25, 2011

What's with the attitude that people won't buy things just because they make some nice profit? Working in manufacturing I can say we have some products that net 4-5 times their production value. The profit rate in video game business is pretty darn low actually.

Vinci · Mar 25, 2011

PantherLotus said:
Wait 'till you find out that Intel and AMD are sitting on chips a couple generations ahead for exactly the same reason Nintendo has priced the 3DS the way they have.

Hint: R&D is expensive as fuck.

And Nintendo's been spending a massive amount on R&D over the last several years. Lets see if people can put two and two together though.

1-D_FTW · Mar 25, 2011

diffusionx said:
If Nintendo didn't do it, then the scalpers would. Why shouldn't Nintendo get what people are willing to pay for it?

If there's a value of $250 on the 3DS, it quite frankly does not matter one fucking bit how much or how little it costs to build it.

It's an arbitrary value. Pachter said 500. Why aren't they selling at 500? And why aren't they sold out anywhere at 250? Don't bring scalpers into the equation until after the fact. People selling on ebay are going to lose money on this.

kuroshiki · Mar 25, 2011

1-D_FTW said:
It's an arbitrary value. Pachter said 500. Why aren't they selling at 500? And why aren't they sold out anywhere at 250? Don't bring scalpers into the equation until after the fact. People selling on ebay are going to lose money on this.

3DS sold out in Japan? Not likely now after the quake.

diffusionx · Mar 25, 2011

1-D_FTW said:
It's an arbitrary value. Pachter said 500. Why aren't they selling at 500?

Seriously? It's not $500 because $500 is too high of a price. $250 is not. It's not an arbitrary value at all.

1-D_FTW said:
And why aren't they sold out anywhere at 250? Don't bring scalpers into the equation until after the fact. People selling on ebay are going to lose money on this.

... which means that Nintendo actually nailed the price. They figured out what people are willing to pay for it. If the thing sells out at $200, and all those systems are on eBay for $250 or $300, that means that Nintendo effectively is handing out money to scalpers.

The Wii came out at $250. Supplies were impossibly low for years. Scalpers had a field day with it for years. Nintendo should've priced it higher, captured that money for themselves, and not forced legitimate fans and customers onto eBay. Good to see they learned their lesson.

Vinci · Mar 25, 2011

Rad- said:
What's with the attitude that people won't buy things just because they make some nice profit? Working in manufacturing I can say we have some products that net 4-5 times their production value. The profit rate in video game business is pretty darn low actually.

Because people have grown accustomed to Sony's model despite the fact that it's self-destructive and next to impossible to profit on without being the industry leader.

A Human Becoming · Mar 25, 2011

Smiles and Cries said:
yeah let's wait before we stone Nintendo on this one

I was going to say, didn't Nintendo only make a $50 profit on the Wii when it launched?

Femmeworth · Mar 25, 2011

ShockingAlberto said:
So I'll just say this.

Did you know the games you buy don't actually cost that much to manufacture? It's just a fucking disc! Not sure why you'd pay more than 30c for any of them.

plagiarize · Mar 25, 2011

ignoring the line of argument that goes 'it costs nintendo X to make so they should sell it at X' even if it takes into account r+d and assembly and shipping et al...

what the hell does that matter? electronics are priced at what people who can't make them themselves are prepared to pay. in some cases that is at a high margin of profit for the manufacture and in some cases it's at little to no profit and at some cases (where you have a loss leading product) it's at a loss.

why do i give a shit how much it costs nintendo to make a 3ds? i can't spend $100 and buy these parts and put one together myself.

if i could, maybe i'd bitch about it.

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