3 ms·
If consoles were sold at a profit what you say may make sense. However building an open platform means you need to devote resources to it both from a capital pe
by vvanders 7y ago
If consoles were sold at a profit what you say may make sense. However building an open platform means you need to devote resources to it both from a capital perspective and opportunity cost.
Driving demand towards the hardware, instead of software and licensing costs on a negative margin product is a pretty sure way to run a company out of business.
- zozbot234 7y agoWhy can't console hardware be sold at a profit? Make up for the increased sale price by bundling a rebate on the first X officially-published games the customer buys. Then everything after that is pure profit for the console vendor.
- Koshkin 7y agoThe more likely you are to buy the (cheap-ish) hardware, the more likely they are to sell you more games - at the regular price. Also, there is this balance which is unrelated to the cost of making the hardware, the balance between the buyer’s wanting to actually use the hardware, since it was bought not too cheaply, and not making the price of hardware too high and scare off the potential buyer.
- sudosysgen 7y agoThis doesn't matter anyways, consoles haven't been sold at a loss for almost a decade.
- lostgame 7y agoThis used to be called ‘pack-ins’, no? Like when Sonic was included with a Genesis?
- Nursie 7y agoNintendo has always sold at a profit AFAICT
- zanny 7y agoIt has been over a decade since any console hardware product has been sold at a loss. That stopped with the Xbox 360 and PS3. Every Wii, Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, etc have all been sold at marginal profit.