4 ms·
iPhones are profitable the minute they walk out the door - you buying music or apps or whatever is just gravy. Add to that the day-one markups (earbuds, chargi
by abofh 4y ago
iPhones are profitable the minute they walk out the door - you buying music or apps or whatever is just gravy. Add to that the day-one markups (earbuds, charging cables, apple care), they have every incentive to put you in the hands of a caring, dedicated salesperson who can upsell you up to your capacity.
Your playstation, on the other hand, requires you to buy two or three games, and if the games aren't there yet for mass market appeal or sufficient genres, well, the console will still be there in four years when the games catch up, and your iphone will be out of date in six months.
In both the manufacturers and scalpers minds, nobody would bother scalping an iPhone - the margin was already sucked out of it and it has a shorter shelf life; In the case of a console, the margin won't be had for a few years, but none of it flows to the casual scalper, so it's a lot of work for 100$ - they'll do it, but it's a grind.
But either way, people are happy to wait in line for the latest fondleslab, and they get it when it's their turn
- eropple 4y ago> Your playstation, on the other hand, requires you to buy two or three games Source? This has not, to the best of my knowledge, been true in console production for a very long time.
- colinmhayes 4y agoPS5 is $400. It's got a ryzen 3700 and 2070 equivalent GPU. There's no chance they're getting those two parts for less than $300 given the chip shortage, and the remaining parts cost at least $100, plus manufacturing.
- eropple 4y agoI think those are assertions without evidence, given that they built that BOM before the chip shortage and generally one has to buy slots significantly in advance. To me a more persuasive argument, with the lack of evidence, might be that part of the supply crunch is being unwilling/unable to raise the price and so being less able to ship units than if they could be more price flexible.
- jazzyjackson 4y agoat least no one is buying PS5s to mine crypto
- etempleton 4y agoMy understanding is the PS5 breaks even at retail. There is essentially no profit margin, but they do not lose money. This of course could be part of the problem—Sony may be unwilling to spend a premium to reserve more processors in advance as they already are operating on razor thin margins. Apple, on the other hand, pays TSMC far in advance and helps fund their research to get priority.