Xbox Kinect costs just £35 to build
Cheap as chips
After receiving positive reviews upon its release this week, Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect has been stripped naked and assessed for manufacture costs. It turns out that the materials that make up the motion-powered peripheral amount to just £35 - considerably less than its £130 RRP.
Although this figure doesn't reflect other factors such as R&D, assembly, marketing, packaging or shipping, the fact there's a £95 difference surely leaves sizeable leeway for future price reductions.
UBM Techinsights, the company responsible for this analysis, said - said by way of EE Times - that Kinect features chips from Marvell, Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics, but the strength of its design can be credited to Israeli company PrimeSense which developed the peripheral's core image processing tech.
Source: iFixit.com
Gadget take apart and repair specialist iFixit also took the Kinect to bits this week, taking a stack of snaps showing the add-ons innards.
In the meantime, if you'd like to change channels with the wave of your hand, it's already possible. This year saw Dragon Den's Duncan Bannatyne invest in the Kymera magic wand, a motion-powered remote control which can learn 13 separate infrared codes triggered by various hand gestures. And they say television was the magic one. ®
COMMENTS
The second one costs £35
The first one is a little bit more expensive.
Re: Only here.
Really? I'm not a gamer but the few reviews I've read (mostly mainstream press) have all been glowing. Might I suggest that it is the hard-core gaming and tech contingent who aren't that chuffed with the Kinect - a product clearly not aimed at them? The Kinect - like the Wii before it - is aimed at families and casual gamers.
And your point is?
So the components cost £35 and it retails for £130. And your point is what exactly? Take your £35, go out and buy the components and there you are you've got your Kinect for a massive saving. OK, there's the small point of assembling it (and knowing HOW to assemble it), and then there's the software that is what this device is really about but hey - it wouldn't make a good headline then would it?
I'm no fan of capitalism, least of all when it comes to massive international corporations like Microsoft, Apple, etc. but get real eh?
Re: Reviews
I followed that link.
I read that as "It works quite well, the tech's sound, but it *really* needs better games"* as written by a traditional, couch-potato gamer who was *seriously* hacked off at being forced to take some actual physical exercise......
*Or much the same as was said here in fact.
What markups?!?
Lets get this right, it's £35 for the parts right?
Okay, there is the labour involved in production, re-tooling production lines, advertising, promotion, transportation costs, profit margin for Microsoft, profit margin for retailers and packaging.
So when someone comes back with the costs involved with the above then and only then can you work out how much profit Microsoft/Retailer are getting.
*sighs* I wish people would think it all the way through first before their knee jerks up and smacks them in the chin.
