Sony Earns About $100 Per PS4 Console Sold - Printer Friendly version without Comments

Appeared on: Saturday, November 16, 2013
Sony Earns About $100 Per PS4 Console Sold

Sony is reprortedly making a $100 gross profit of $100 for each Playstation 4 sold, according to an analysis of the new device?s innards.

TechInsights estimates the cost to Sony of its components at about $296. The device retails for $399.

The same website had reported that Sony was losing about $88 per PS3 console shipped in 2006. The PS3 carried a list price of $599.

It looks like Sony has found a way to make more profit out of the new PS4. For instance, Sony the Blu-ray drive in the 2006 PlayStation 3 was estimated to cost $81, but now a similar drive costs $20 now.

In addiion, the PlayStation 3 was powered by a IBM-Toshiba Cell chip and required a separate chip for graphics. The AMD processor of the PS4 has a x86 design and is cheaper, while it remains more familiar to game developers. TechInsights estimates the processor in the new console cost Sony $85.

Sony has also followed a new memory architecture for the PS4. The PS3 used separate pools of memory for graphics and for the main processors. The new PS4 uses 8GB of GDDR5 memory that can be used for both graphics and calculations. The associated chips add about $62 to the cost of making the new system, TechInsights says.

IFixit also published a PS4 teardown. According to the firm, the PS4 uses a 5400 RPM, 500 GB, SATA II hard disk made by HGST; a slot-in BD-ROM powered by a Renesas SCEI RJ832841FP1 chipset; Samsung K4G41325FC-HC03 4 Gb (512 MB) GDDR5 RAM; Macronix MX25L25635FMI 256Mb Serial Flash Memory; a Marvell 88EC060-NN82 Ethernet Controller; a Panasonic MN86471A HDMI Communication LSI; and a Marvell Wireless Avastar 88W8797 7 Integrated 2x2 WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Single-Chip SoC.

The PS4 also includes a low-power processor and 2 Gb of GDDR3 SDRAM memory, stacking up to a total of 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM. The "SCEI CXD90025G" processor has been identified as a low-power ARM solution. This secondary custom chip most probably handles network processing such as downloading contents from the Internet when the PS4 is in a standby state.

Sony says that the launch of the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system resulted in 1 million units sold through during the first 24 hours after it became available on November 15, 2013 in the United States and Canada.