Kinect Only Costs $56 to Make

[aussiesniper]

What about research costs, advertising, shipping, game development? all these things must be paid for too

research? Microsoft is putting existing tech into a box. Its tech has been around for decades. They are building a game console addon, not researching a damn nuke.

and I'm sure you could put together the off the shelf parts, write the software, test it, fix any glaring bugs, concept it, etc, etc, etc... without spending a fortune.

Just because tech has been around a while doesn't mean shit when it comes to developing new applications for it.

shelf parts = manufacturing, cheap.
software = already written and tested by many college students working at MIT, government programs.
testing = cheap workforce, testers get paid below 40K.
concepts = already done.
fixing bugs = changes in code.

its not all that expensive.

Years of labor by skilled workers = Not cheap

Also, you can't just use someone else's code like that. Not for something as specific as firmware for a new piece of technology that you just designed.

actually yes it is. the tech already exists and the machines to put them together are entirely mechanized. cheap. firmware already exists so all they do is put it together and bam, kinect.

By "The tech already exists" do you mean that someone had already drawn up a circuit diagram, patented, programmed and built a working prototype of the Kinect before microsoft decided to go make it? Because unless microsoft just bought a licence to produce a few million kinects from someone else, they have to go through all those processes before they can make a contract with some factory to go make a production line.

basically yes. tech like this has been around for decades and its being toyed around by the US military, used in building automated vehicles.

I don't think that the army wrote gesture recognition code, or would ever consider building a sensor that spams IR (the same frequency as their nightvision equipment detects) in random directions.

 

[ENKC]

Comprehensive failure to understand rudimentary economics in both the article and the thread. Cost of parts and manufacturing is just one aspect of a rather enormous whole. There's the transport, the marketing, the development, the technical support, all the accountants and lawyers and managers and so forth that are involved in not only getting the product off the ground but keeping it going as well. And that's before the retailers take their cut.

I would not be very surprised if they are making NO PROFIT WHATSOEVER on the units themselves.

 

[Bubbay]

What about research costs, advertising, shipping, game development? all these things must be paid for too

research? Microsoft is putting existing tech into a box. Its tech has been around for decades. They are building a game console addon, not researching a damn nuke.

and I'm sure you could put together the off the shelf parts, write the software, test it, fix any glaring bugs, concept it, etc, etc, etc... without spending a fortune.

Just because tech has been around a while doesn't mean shit when it comes to developing new applications for it.

shelf parts = manufacturing, cheap.
software = already written and tested by many college students working at MIT, government programs.
testing = cheap workforce, testers get paid below 40K.
concepts = already done.
fixing bugs = changes in code.

its not all that expensive.

Years of labor by skilled workers = Not cheap

Also, you can't just use someone else's code like that. Not for something as specific as firmware for a new piece of technology that you just designed.

actually yes it is. the tech already exists and the machines to put them together are entirely mechanized. cheap. firmware already exists so all they do is put it together and bam, kinect.

By "The tech already exists" do you mean that someone had already drawn up a circuit diagram, patented, programmed and built a working prototype of the Kinect before microsoft decided to go make it? Because unless microsoft just bought a licence to produce a few million kinects from someone else, they have to go through all those processes before they can make a contract with some factory to go make a production line.

basically yes. tech like this has been around for decades and its being toyed around by the US military, used in building automated vehicles.

I don't think that the army wrote gesture recognition code, or would ever consider building a sensor that spams IR (the same frequency as their nightvision equipment detects) in random directions.

no but they did dabble in sensors, etc that recognize surroundings. hell the kinect wasn't even the first console to do this. i forgot the name but it was a circle that you put on the ground and you stand in the middle.

Using concepts from established technologies is not the same as writing code for your specific product. They still have to write specialized code for their hardware. Kinect is entirely new hardware (even if it uses established technologies and even if they use off the shelf components, this particular combination and application of this hardware IS new) so there is development cost there. Even if MS could have taken code from elsewhere and used it on Kinect without modification, they would then need to pay whoever DID develop that code, which would not be cheap.