Research firm iSuppli has something to tell you PS3 owners out there – you’re holding a supercomputer in your hands at PC pricing. According to an article over at DigiTimes, iSuppli recently did a teardown analysis of the PS3 as well as the Xbox, and determined that:

“With the PS3, you are getting the performance of a supercomputer at the price of an entry-level PC”

That quote was from Andrew Rassweiler who is the teardown services manager and senior analyst for iSuppli.

Ah but is Sony paying entry level PC costs to build the PlayStation 3? Not really folks. While you’re paying $599 for that game system (which we still feel is a bit extreme for a home gaming system), the actual cost of the system as determined by iSuppli is more like $805.85 for the 20GB model and $840.35 for the 60GB model. As you can see – Sony would obviously rather you purchase the 60GB model since the actual manufacturing cost difference between the 20GB and the 60GB is minimal at around 40 dollars.

Yes. Sony is taking roughly $241.35 dollar hit for every 60GB model sold. Yet – this isn’t something new of course. We all knew Microsoft was taking a hit for every Xbox 360 sold when the console first came out. Game console manufacturers typically sell their hardware at a loss hoping to make money back via game license costs. Over time, hardware manufacturing costs come down which will result in smaller losses or even a slight profit.

In fact, iSuppli claims Microsoft now makes a small profit off of every Xbox 360 HDD equipped console. The Xbox 360 Premium version costs Microsoft $323.30 to make while the system is still sold at $399. Remember that Microsoft has yet to lower the price on the console.

So if you’re interested in knowing more about the PS3 teardown analysis, check out the DigiTimes article – it’s a great read.

[Check it out]

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , ,