So... how much *does* it cost to make a Wii?

[JKTrix]

Click the pic to see the page where I got it from, but it is in Japanese.



It appears to be a break-down of the cost of the different items to make the Wii and PS3. My Japanese reading is very limited (I can only read the easy stuff, no kanji) so I'll translate what I can read. Anyone who knows kanji is very welcome to translate :P

I'm fairly sure the numbers are in US$. Here are the categories with numbers in them:
-Graphics Chip
-CPU (Note the extra cost of the EE+GS chips, the PS2 brains. this will be cheaper for Sony once they switch to software emulation)
-I/O [Prizzi?] controller (not really sure what this is, but it's there. could be the actual game controller, but then why doesn't nintendo have a cost there)
-DRAM
-Hard Disk
-[Something] Disk Drive (Probably Optical Disk Drive, DVD/BluRay etc. That character looks like 'Hikari', which is light, which I only know because that's how the song from Kingdom Hearts comes up on my iPod)
-Power Supply
-[Something] cost (assembly, I assume, but I really don't know)
-Cost (of everything up to then added up, probably how much it costs the company to actually make the console)
-[Manufacturer's Selling Price?](feasible guess, this is probably how much the maker sells it to the distributors--the people who go on to sell them for $250/$499)
-Stuff in red, is the difference between the Maker's cost and what they sell it for

On Nintendo's side, the red number is +$37.69. On the 20GB PS3 side, that number is -$406.65. This list doesn't take into consideration how much the sensor bar, wiimote and nunchuk (and wii sports i guess) cost, so maybe that would bring it closer to a negative number, but they do actually appear to be making money on the system itself.

And Sony is really doing us all a favor by giving us such a lovely discount on their system. See, the PS3 really is cheap (not sarcasm) which is why the price is less of a dealbreaker for me.

Open to discussion, naturally.

Edit: Looks like this is on Kotaku too. I could have used their translation instead of trying to figure it out myself, lol

[Odaisé Gaelach]

You have to remember that it's not the games consoles that make the profits for the company - it's the games.

[Roto13]

Yes, but the number of games someone needs to buy before they break even differs quite a bit.

[Leonffs]

All this accounts for is material costs. Most of the money spent on the Wii is in Research and Development Costs (R&D). This is true for pretty much all electronics. You can't just price something based on the production costs of its materials. R&D is huge.