Paying 250$ for a 3DS that cost a little over 101$

[irrelevantnugget]

They all do it. Sony or Microsoft did the same thing with the 360/PS3 (can't remember which. I think it was 360) where it cost like a fraction of what they were selling it for.


With the 3DS' release it seems a lot of people are desperate to try and draw attention away from it.

Both the 360 and PS3 were sold at a loss at first. Think 1 bought PS3 even meant a loss of $100 for Sony at first. They wanted to make profit through the games. Nintendo has always been selling at a profit, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Besides, who buys a Nintendo handheld at launch anyway, they'll have an improved version pushed onto the market within the next year and a half, and then you'll have the choice at a cheaper first gen or the $249 update. Or just not care. Or buy the NGP. Or waste even more money on a girlfriend [/gamestation]

 

[BouncingSoul]

But either way, I don't care. Soft drinks cost, what, 10 or 15 cents for the carbonated water, cup and syrup for any given restaurant? And how many of you still buy those at a much higher price than 10 cents?

i used to bartend in a pretty big concert venue in Manhattan. we'd get our syrup boxes for just over $4 each and each syrup box would make hundreds of cups of soda. even in Manhattan water is less than a penny a gallon so it actually comes out closer to $0.01 per glass if you have enough bulk. even in a mom and pop place it's still a huge money maker.

as for the liquor there, let's just say we got cases (24 packs) of Coors Original for $11 each and sold individual cans for $8 a piece...

basically, anyone will charge whatever they can get away with whenever they can.

EDIT: i just saw you deleted your post. tell me if you want me to delete this.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

I'm pretty sure that over 100% profit margins are absolutely no surprise to anyone.
Also, consider this.

Why do game disks cost $60 when the disk itself only costs like, £2 for the materials?
Because of the time and dedication that actually went into designing the work, developing, all the overheads involved and the manpower behind it.

The 3DS didn't magically appear, Nintendo has already likely spent millions on their aesthetic designs alone- imagine what the hardware division has forked out to work up blueprints for it.

Not that I'm saying $250 is reasonable at all, but you see my point.

 

[lapan]

Doesn't seem that unreasonable to me.

What i would be more worried about is digital downloads. Those cost the same, sometimes more than in retail even though you get a lot less for your money.No manuals, no physical copy, they are often bound to an account and not resell-able.

 

[WayOutThere]

I don't have a problem with that. I want Nintendo to make a fuckload of money for creating such a cool product.

 

[LinkSwitch]

I think what everyone seems to forget is all of the money that is poured into R&D for these types of things. You dont simply just get the raw materials and instantly know how to make a great glasses-free 3D handheld - it takes time and money to work out how it can be made, made well, and then more money to iron out the kinks.

You arent just buying a random lump of plastic and metal. For 5 times the amount

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

(1) I'd bet the labour cost is significantly higher than I think everyone is assuming. In a lot of cases, the labour is more expensive than the raw material cost for the product.

(2) Indignation and outrage? This trope of gamers getting indignant and outraged over normal business practice is getting tiresome.

(3) Nintendo makes a lot of money off of its hardware. Last I saw, the Wii is still selling much fewer games, despite still selling a tremendous number of console units, so it only makes sense for them to be making money on the consoles. They also have no internet subscription base. Moving to a Microsoft/Sony model where you take a loss on the console in the hope that games and subscriptions will make up for it would be pretty dangerous for Nintendo I'd think.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Pretty unsuprising, after all we have no clue how long it took Nintendo to research, manufacture, and advertise the 3DS. I'm not getting it, but I don't feel Nintendo is trying to make a huge profit off of it.

 

[BouncingSoul]

it's good to see that most people actually understand all the factors that go into making any mass produced... um, product haha. seriously though, like i said earlier it annoys the piss out of me when someone complains about how cheap the materials in a car are and thus it should "only cost $5000." or why a burger at Applebee's is $10 when there's $2 worth of ingredients. it's not like they have to pay rent or employees or insurance costs or franchising fees or business taxes or recoup the costs of buying/building the location and all the kitchen stuff, silverware, plates, glasses. no, it's just an $8 profit on every burger; these places are basically printing money.

 

[therandomguy226]

They do it because that price in all likelyhood yields the highest potential profit at this stage, now if you wanna see a crazy mark up look at what stores usually sell a HDMI cable for the xbox 360!

 

[cystemic]

I always rush out to buy the console on day one I like to justify that I'm spending my money on enhancing the video game industry and that the profit margin will eventually enable the company to make awesome games for the console but that's just idealistic bs, im a fangirl and that is all :3

 

[ryderawsome]

here in england is costs £225 which is about $300. DAMN YOU SLOWLY RECOVERING ECONOMY

 

[brumley53]

Come to australia, retail buys the games for around $20 and sells them for $80-100, then you can say you're getting ripped off.

 

[Turing]

This isn't exactly new.

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it"
-Publilius Syrus, around 100BC

 

[Adzma]

Try spending $350 like we in the land of Aus must. At anyrate, you're paying for the man hours involved. At least the US are anyway, everywhere else is just getting ripped off because Nintendo are a bunch of greedy twats.

 

[Akirai]

Retail price: 250$

-20% (VAT)
200
-10% (profit mark up from retailer to consumer)
180
-10% (profit mark up from bulkretailer to retailer)
162
-5$ (shipping costs)
-5$ (assembly costs)
-5$ (wages)
-5$ (r&d)
142
-101$ (raw materials)
41
-25% (company profit tax)

Actual Nintendo profit per unit purchased:
30,75$

How outrageous.

 

[V8 Ninja]

You've also got to realize that this 3D-handheld idea has been floating around at Nintendo for over a good decade or two. While Nintendo might have not pushed all of their money into the R&D every year, an R&D cycle of 10-20 years is going to cost a good mountain of cash. Also, the 3DS is packed with features and even some games from the get-go while most other Nintendo handhelds haven't really had anything in terms of turn-on-and-play-without-a-cartridge software. Personally I'm waiting for the handheld to drop $50-100 before I buy it but I can see why Nintendo is starting off at such a high price.

 

[Azdron]

I don't see whats so outragous about making a profit.

its not ridiculous that they are making a profit, its that they are making a ridiculous profit! See what I did there?

 

[tharglet]

I wonder how much profit there is in the average iphone or ipad, oh but they come in a WHITE case, so that's ok

I've heard what I believe to be an accurate figure and you really don't want to know the answer on that