Analyst says Sony Nearly Breaking Even on PS3 Costs

Research firm iSuppli did a fresh teardown analysis of the latest model of the PlayStation 3 on retail shelves, and they discovered an interesting result: They estimate Sony has reduced manufacturing costs of each PS3 to $448.73, meaning Sony is now only losing about $50 on each $400 PS3 they sell ( via Business Week). That Sony is still losing money on every PS3 sold may not sound like good news, but it is when you consider how much they were losing when the console first launched. Originally, estimates put the cost to build a PS3 at around $840, so Sony was losing a whopping $240 on every $600 PS3 sold at the time. According to iSuppli, Sony has managed to reduce costs mainly by consolidating two or more chips into one, and reducing the amount of parts in each unit overall. When the PS3 first launched, it used 4,048 parts in total, and now it's down to 2,820. "At the end of the day the PS3 is doing the same thing it did ... (link)