Nintendo 3DS Costs $103 to Build
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Never mind the headaches and reported Black Screen of Death syndrome affecting some 3DS consoles, for some, the real gripe against Nintendo's latest handheld game player is the price. Without any extras, the 3DS runs $250, or $50 shy of a slim Xbox 360 console with a 250GB hard drive. Decide for yourself whether this comes as any consolation or more salt in the wound, but a recent breakdown of parts pegs the bill of materials (BOM) and manufacturing costs of the 3DS at $103 and a quarter.
According to iSuppli, the 3DS carries a BOM of $100.71, which is a 33 percent increase over the DSi. Not surprisingly, the displays account for a third of the cost ($33.80), followed by mechanical/electromechanical parts ($20.81), processor ($10.02), memory ($8.36), and on down the list (view the itemized breakdown here.) Manufacturing adds another $2.54.
One interesting thing to note is that the battery, at $3.50, is more than twice as expensive as that of the DSi and accounts for 3.5 percent of the BOM.
"Because the 3DS has bigger, more sophisticated displays and a higher performance apps processor than the DSi -- as well as new added features such as a gyroscope and accelerometer -- it makes sense the battery would have higher capacity," said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director, teardown services for IHS.
Rassweiler also said that Nintendo appears to have taken a page from Apple in designing the battery and multi-faceted power management scheme.
Image Credit: Nintendo
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Sodman
March 30, 2011 at 3:17pm
Is everyone forgetting the reatailers role n this picture, on average retailers have around a 30-35% profit margin, so for an item that retails at $249.99 the retailer is going to get one third, rounded up to around $85.00 which greatly reduces the amount of money you are all thinking Nintendo is getting to around $165.00 -$103.00 manufacturing cost which now only leaves $62.00 to cover packaging, shipping fees, any other distribution fees, costs of advertising, point of sale marketing displays, all of which have to be covered out that largely reduced amount (no longer sounds like the bad villain now does it) and thats not to mention about recouping R&D costs to design the product.
Danthrax66
March 29, 2011 at 5:23pm
This is the most gimmicky device has released, I mean the wii is pretty much useless except for Smash Brothers and now they release this even more useless thing. I think I;m just going to wait for the PSP2 because Sony is making HUGE advancements in mobile gaming their game store with old PS1 games is genious.
bling581
March 29, 2011 at 9:43am
I only had one in my hands for a few minutes at the Best Buy display, which featured Pilot Wings. I was pretty disapointed with the quality of the 3D. You had to view it at a very precise angle in order to see the 3D so that can be problematic if you're not used to gaming in that position. I still have hope for it though and we'll see what happens after trying out some other games.
Scotso
March 29, 2011 at 9:39am
I don't think they're going to make "such a huge profit." Early units especially reflect the high cost of research and development, which the build cost doesn't take into account. Nintendo doesn't have the deep pockets of Sony and Microsoft, they can't afford to take a loss on their products.
Tech-Hedz
March 29, 2011 at 8:58am
I picked up mine the other day and I am a bit disapointed by the quality of the unit. It seems pretty cheap. The camera is less then adequate and the graphics are pretty weak. I can't see why they couldn't of gone with a little of nicer hardware instead of trying to make such a huge profit. No need to be greedy Nintendo. The quailty of your games is more then enough for you to make your profits back. Now you need to compete with the likes of Apple and Sony along with other players who are making 3D hardware with much better hardware and graphic units. They may not have the games but it's not long before developers are unable to to support your old cheap hardware. Games developed for the the Unreal 3 engine will not run on the 3DS while they support systems like IOS and Android, you need to step your game up Nintendo and soon.
kamikaji
March 29, 2011 at 6:50pm
As Scotso said, Nintendo can't really afford to considerably beef up their hardware, then barely make any money back off of it. Sony and Microsoft are HUGE conglomerate corporations that can do that sort of thing (cough cough PS3), but not Nintendo.
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