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GameCube Hardware sold at a loss
- Thread starter cvxfreak
- Start date
TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
Yeah at $99 I'm not suprised. Atleast it isn't that much of a loss since they're going to use the same production plants for the next gen system.
Nice to see how much cheaper the DS cartridges are compared to the GBA. Hopefully that'll mean exact same pricing structure and a broader market for cheaper games.
Nice to see how much cheaper the DS cartridges are compared to the GBA. Hopefully that'll mean exact same pricing structure and a broader market for cheaper games.
TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
Just pointing out the "bit" part for the ADD kids, carry on.Matlock said:
EDIT: 8 bits is equal (usually) to 1 byte
Mike Works
Member
"Draw the doorknob to complete the loading animation"
FitzOfRage
Member
CVXFREAK said:
I remember Capcom saying that when they tried it without the door animation, it took away from the suspense.
Yeah, it's purely psychological.FitzOfRage said:
Similarly, i remember playing an early build of Eternal Darkness at the Cube Clubs. There were no transitions from one room to the next. As soon as you heard the sound of the doorknob being turned, the next scene had loaded. It was extremely jarring.
Yep... a fairer comparison would be listing the minimum cart sizes...Lost Weekend said:
GBA~ 4MB (32Mbit)
NDS~ 128MB (1Gbit)
...it's known that an 8MB GBA cart costs 3rd parties around $4-$5... so DS cards could range anywhere between $1-$3. That puts them in PSP UMD territory cost wise, or slightly less even.
The loss won't be the same overall though due to pricing in differing regions. Also, Nintendo moved about 5.7 million GameCubes and the 20B yen figure isn't exactly specific (20B last year or 20B at the current pricing model in the next?). Trying to estimate the loss per console of this information is like shooting in the dark. :/jedimike said:
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
Or Fatal Fury on the SNES. *shudders*
jarrod said:
I don't know what you are trying to say...
That loss is reported from the company. It doesn't matter what region it's in. I would say the figure is very accurate. Nintendo's hardware operating loss divided by Nintendo's number of consoles sold, does in fact equal loss per console. Sure it may be off by a dollar or two, but it is the most accurate figure you'll ever get.
adjusted for more accurate sales info
$178,881,854.83 / 5,700,000 = $31.38
Sure it does... US loss per console is likely higher than Japan or PAL regions given it's lower price here.jedimike said:
So exactly 20,000,000,000 yen?jedimike said:
But it doesn't specify the 20B being last year's losses, or if that's the rate of loss per console now at current pricing. The figures you're using aren't specific enough, though they probably give a good indication.jedimike said:
These figures match up pretty well with the Webrush report though, which estimated GameCube costing $120 for manufacturing (which would probably be around a $30 loss per unit in the USA, being GC's largest region).
jarrod said:
It's an average of losses for all regions. It's the hit Nintendo takes per console before it's even shipped to a region.
Maybe it's 19,789,284,362 and maybe the actually shipments were 5,687,578... like I said it may be off by a dollar or two.
In this case, sales price is irrelevant because they are giving us the manufacturing hardware loss. It's how much Nintendo loses in relevance to how much it costs to make.
I always assumed $20 before, but $30 is likely more accurate.
MaddenNFL64
Member
The Gamecube is pretty damn cost effective, just not enough I guess .
.Actually, shipping costs would be included I'd think. The loss per console figure wasn't just manufacturing, but all hardware associated losses it seems (which could potentially even include R&D and paying off those NEC plant costs). Like I said, we really need more specifics.jedimike said:
Well... we obviously have different standards on what accurate implies then.jedimike said:
But we don't know any specifics on exactly what period the 20B yen per year figure entails. "Per year" is open to wide interpretation, it could be last year, the year before, an estimation of next year, or some average of them... applying it to a solid figure (like what they sold last year) seems a little like fuzzy math. A good indication sure, but hardly an accurate figure.jedimike said:
$30 in the USA it seems according to Webrush, closer to $10 in Japan and sold at cost in Europe actually.jedimike said:
psycho_snake
I went to WAGs boutique and all I got was a sniff
Im not really surprised, selling at console at $99 and making a profit would mean that the console is crap
Blazing Sword
Member
I guess this leaves one less argument to use for gamecube fans, about how Nintendo makes money off its consoles and MS does'nt.
Time to find something new.
Time to find something new.
Baron Aloha
A Shining Example
Blazing Sword said:
No one (at least not here from what I've seen) has used that argument since September of last year. This is old news.
MaddenNFL64
Member
Well, it's still $30, so a full priced game, or two could wipe that out.
The article says hardware, not Gamecube. It includes GCN,GBA, GBASP, and possibly even NDS. You can't estimate jack from this. If profit is made on the GBA, then the loss would be greater on the GCN; if the GBASP was sold at a loss (probaby was at lat year's launch), GCN could even be sold at a profit. We don't know, we can only assume and definitely can't tell anything by this article.
For all we know, that 20bil yen could be the difference between the time it takes to produce the systems and actually sell it.
Blazing Sword, don't be dumb.
For all we know, that 20bil yen could be the difference between the time it takes to produce the systems and actually sell it.
Blazing Sword, don't be dumb.
It was estimated that Nintendo was losing under $10 per GAMECUBE sold at launch. Then NEC & ATi talked about how they were lowering costs before the $50 price drop. Around this time analysts were saying that Nintendo & Microsoft were losing close to the same amount on hardware, but that's absurd so I take what they say with a grain of salt. Then, when they moved alot of the manufacturing to China, they were shaving off more costs and were probably making nice profits on GAMECUBE hardware. But then there was the free game deal which probably made them break even. Then there was the period of time where GAMECUBE wasn't selling so hot and they stopped manufacturing for a while (early last year) and there was a big backstock of them at retailers...then Nintendo lowered the price before the Holiday's last year, but they weren't really losing money there, retailers were losing money 'cos it was the $150 GAMECUBE's from backstock that they were selling. When Nintendo started up production again, I would still say they were about even with the $100 pricepoint 'cos they got rid of the digital out if you remember which probably saved them alot per GAMECUBE.
When an analyst says X-BOX is sold at a loss I believe it 'cos there's alot of fixed costs in the system, advanced technology like a "generation" ahead PC parts & a HD and it's Microsoft's nature to "give" in order to garner support (did something similar "giving" with MSN). But when an analyst says GAMECUBE at a loss it's not as believable 'cos there's no fixed costs, they've done alot of things to help them break even and traditionally, Nintendo usually doesn't sell stuff at a loss...the GAMECUBE itself is a marvel in design 'cos of it's cost effectiveness, why do you think MS ditched Intel/nVidea for IBM/ATi?
We don't know if those #'s given entail *just* GAMECUBE (probably not likely as Nintendo likes to lump their home & portable lines together to make their bussiness look better) nor do we know if this has to do with future losses due to new hardware coming or if it's the exchange rates again. Anyways...this is all rediculous talk 'cos it can't be proven that GAMECUBE is losing that much per hardware sold or even if it could it doesn't say wether it was back when they first did the price drop or when they started up production again (of the new digital out-less GAMECUBE's) so again it's pointless 'cos what does it prove...that Nintendo is bleeding, failing or dying? Hell no...they're still making money and they still have mad cash built up in resserves.
I don't doubt that Nintendo is losing money somewhere, but profits of software licencing and everything else more than make up for it...just like MS is losing money on X-BOX, but their other profitable sectors more than make up for it...what are people trying to prove, that MS can lose more money there 'cos they make more money here??? Big deal, MS is bigger than Nintendo, we *already* knew this, so what! Get it out of your system already...you win...MS is bigger than Nintendo...woopee!
When an analyst says X-BOX is sold at a loss I believe it 'cos there's alot of fixed costs in the system, advanced technology like a "generation" ahead PC parts & a HD and it's Microsoft's nature to "give" in order to garner support (did something similar "giving" with MSN). But when an analyst says GAMECUBE at a loss it's not as believable 'cos there's no fixed costs, they've done alot of things to help them break even and traditionally, Nintendo usually doesn't sell stuff at a loss...the GAMECUBE itself is a marvel in design 'cos of it's cost effectiveness, why do you think MS ditched Intel/nVidea for IBM/ATi?
We don't know if those #'s given entail *just* GAMECUBE (probably not likely as Nintendo likes to lump their home & portable lines together to make their bussiness look better) nor do we know if this has to do with future losses due to new hardware coming or if it's the exchange rates again. Anyways...this is all rediculous talk 'cos it can't be proven that GAMECUBE is losing that much per hardware sold or even if it could it doesn't say wether it was back when they first did the price drop or when they started up production again (of the new digital out-less GAMECUBE's) so again it's pointless 'cos what does it prove...that Nintendo is bleeding, failing or dying? Hell no...they're still making money and they still have mad cash built up in resserves.
I don't doubt that Nintendo is losing money somewhere, but profits of software licencing and everything else more than make up for it...just like MS is losing money on X-BOX, but their other profitable sectors more than make up for it...what are people trying to prove, that MS can lose more money there 'cos they make more money here??? Big deal, MS is bigger than Nintendo, we *already* knew this, so what! Get it out of your system already...you win...MS is bigger than Nintendo...woopee!