Upgrading a PS3’s HDD to 120GB is as easy as going to an online store and selecting the proper 2.5" drive and buying it. Cost? Around $70-$80. If you want to upgrade your Xbox 360’s HDD, you’ll be facing a price tag of $179.
Ouch.
So why the big difference in price? Microsoft says that it’s because of special things and magic it has to add to the hard drive before they sell it to you. But iSuppli, a company that likes to track down the real costs of products did a little sleuthing to figure out how much Microsoft’s pricey 360 drive might actually cost.
According to iSuppli, the main drive itself probably is either a Toshiba or Seagate that is pre-loaded with software and other tidbits. Cost of the basic unit is probably around $75. Add another $5 for packaging and other frills and the total goes up to $80.
But that’s still pretty far from the final $179 price of the unit. iSuppli thinks that the suppliers of the Xbox 360 drives mark up the unit to around a hundred bucks when they sell them to Microsoft for distribution. Ok, that brings up the price to $100.
The next link in this markup adventure is from Microsoft. They put a suggested retail price on the unit of $179.99. Retailers can move this price around if they want because it’s just the suggested price. Right now, you can get the 120GB for your 360 at Amazon.com for only $149.99…a full $30 below MSRP. So this proves that retailers can still make money even with a large price drop such as this.
So who’s raking in all the cash? It looks like your friendly neighborhood retail store is. Of course these figures are only estimates from iSuppli–the actual stats for how much the 360 HDD costs is kept under lock and key. But one thing remains clear; the high price of the 120GB drive is a lot higher than it ought to be.
Who knows, maybe the extra profits from the 120GB drives are helping to offset the costs of all the broken Xbox 360s that are turned in for repair.
[via multiplayerblog.mtv]
