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Motorola Q broken down by the numbers
iSuppli's back doing what they do best -- ripping apart your favorite piece of hardware, adding up the component costs, and letting you know how much you're getting taken when you whip out the plastic. Today's victim is Motorola's text-tastic Q, and though the margins are pretty slim, it looks like Moto and Verizon are in the black on every unit they push. All told, iSupply totals the cost of the Q's guts to be $150; tack on another $8 for manufacturing and you're looking at $158 out the door. The most expensive component, not surprisingly, is the device's 320 x 240 display at $25, with memory and the XScale rounding out the top three. If you've invested in one of these bad boys lately you know that Verizon's charging $199 on a two-year contract, meaning that in the worst case, the two companies are splitting $41 -- and if you opt for a one-year at $349, well, they're just rolling in fat city.
Toshiba exec: HD DVD profitable, Xbox 360 to include HD DVD internally "soon"
Toshiba's $499 HD-A1 HD DVD is "priced to make a profit" according to Toshiba executive Mark Whittard, despite reports from iSuppli that it actually cost around $700 to make. He also sought to clarify statements made by CEO Atsutoshi Nichida recently calling for unification between HD DVD and Blu-ray, and Toshiba's long term strategy for HD DVD. Their plan is to "stitch up" relationships with movie studios to ensure more support for the format, enable third party manufacturers to produce rebadged HD DVD players and increase its exposure in the marketplace. As far as unification? That is "just good business sense", since a format war confuses customers and shrinks the market. He remarks that Blu-ray does have some strong features, but thinks HD DVD matches up comparatively well, especially with support from Intel, Microsoft and HP.Finally, the launch of the Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on is mentioned, he expects Microsoft will release a version of the console with an internal HD DVD drive and that they will announce their plans to do so "fairly soon". We're not too sure about his statement that most of the studios who originally supported Blu-ray now have a foot in both camps, because Blu-ray still has an advantage there. It's good to see that someone realizes how much sense a unified high-def standard makes, however with the two sides both so firmly entrenched behind their format it's hard to see either one giving in to the other or even agreeing to a compromise anytime soon.[Update: Cesar from Microsoft's Gamerscore blog has posted that Microsoft has "no plans" to include an HD DVD drive in the 360 and are going forward with the aforementioned add-on, thanks Eli!]
Toshiba taking $200 loss on each HD-A1, sez iSuppli
We've long wondered how Toshiba's able to price its HD-A1 HD DVD player at $500 while the Blu-ray camp will be charging $1,000 and up for their next-gen machines, and now the eggheads over at iSuppli are claiming to have the answer. After furiously running all the numbers through their high-tech calculators, the same company that brought us breakdowns of the iPod nano and Xbox 360 production costs is estimating that it takes $674 worth of parts to build an HD-A1 -- bringing the total cost to well over $700 when you include labor, packaging, etc. -- which means that Toshiba is taking a $200 loss on each unit sold. Rarely seen outside the world of videogame hardware, this pricing strategy is usually employed to build up a customer base for the devices' highly-profitable software, but in Toshiba's case, achieving significant HD DVD penetration prior to the Blu-ray rollout was probably even more important than the few bucks they make from each HD DVD disc that gets sold. Unfortunately for those of us waiting on a burner to hit the market before making the HD optical plunge, it doesn't sound like Toshiba will also be willing take a loss on that RD-A1 introduced the other day, as its $3,400 pricetag seems to more than cover every little component they're stuffing in there.[Via HDBeat]