Consoles are sold for less than they cost to make, and the profit comes from the games. You would have to be insane to license XBox 360 to sell a product you will take a loss on, and then let the profit go to Microsoft. So this must mean the XBox 360 doesn't cost more to make then they will sell it for. If that is true then it must be really bad.

That or processors have gotten really cheap lately. They'll still be up there though - atleast a couple hundred.

Just think though - you can get an AMD 3200+ for what...$150? That's a pretty fast processor, and AMD 2800+'s are even cheaper, not to mention mass-buy discounts, and price reductions for being proprietary, and sold to a large corporation. They should be able to easily add a 3.0ghz processor to such a console without increasing the cost by more than say....$100USD.

Memory has also come down. Single 512mb DDR400mhz DIMMs often retail for about $60 or less.(although not the really high quality stuff)

If you look at all the components that it would take to build a console, and then compare with all the parts used to build a computer, the parts used in the computer are all coming down right now in price for various reasons, so the same should apply to the console once it's released.

I've seen 512DDR for as little as $29 recently, and I believe that was even crucial memory.

$29....nice. I'm in Canada though, so its mostly up around $60 here.

Can you imagine. Windows XP for xbox 360?

Yeah...read my post below :)

Hmm, the only reason consoles are easier to code for, is there is one common hardware spec. If all of a sudden, we get attack of the xbox360 clones, then this surely musty compromise the relibility of the software on the console...

You are correct. Yup, I can already see the new xbox forums: "Why do I receive a STOP:0x00000021a error on my Alcatraz (tm) XBox 360 while playing Blood Gultch in Halo?" :) Fun, fun, fun.

Would "any" general local OEM system assemblers be able to compete??? If a local VAR can get an OEM distribution of the XBOX OS, would they need to follow a recommended hardware list, like MCE?

well, this tactic was tried by 3do a few years back, look how successful that was. Although things have changed a lot since then, I doubt this kind of thing will ever catch on in the games industry.

Hmmm...forgot about that. Times have definately changed now, however, so there's no way to know if it will 'never' catch on (just like we will "never" need more than 640KB of RAM). So you may be right--but perhaps not.

That could have worked if the 3DO system was less expensive at the time, but they had not yet realized that consoles have to be sold at a loss to reach a pricepoint where they will be successful. Same thing with NeoGeo, Sega Saturn, Jaguar, and the CD32 wonderful systems but way too expensive.

I recall drooling over the $499 Saturn and the (used) $399 3D0 many years ago.

"Darn that Microsoft! They run an illegal monopoly toppling the competition! If only Microsoft wasn't so intelligent the guys at my company could out-do them!" - Hypothetical response by competition.

Microsoft isn't breaking the law on this one folks--they're just smart. If MS devoted the time and energy towards Xbox 1 that they devoted towards XP SP2, Sony would not even be making the PS3. Even as a PS2 fan, Sony's not able to compete with Microsoft if they devote enough effort to Xbox. No it's not Sony's fault--sony just thought they could beat the biggest software company in the world, and will likely fail.

Please refrain from useless insults and technical details--XBOX 360 DETAILS ARE SKETCHY AT BEST, YOU CAN'T TELL ME PS3 IS BETTER UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT MS HAS. Remember also I have been a PS fan since Tekken 2, I will play PS3 games and will continue to support sony. I'm only saying this PS3 vs. XBox 360 debate is stupid as the xbox details are not final yet--ANYTHING could change. I believe MS will win overall because they are smarter in business. Plain and simple.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

You don't need to corner the market to be profitable. People seem to be ready to embrace multiple winners. Gone are the days of SNES vs. Genesis.

Well it's a company that basically owns a monopoly in one industry trying to flood another industry with its inferior product. Sorry, but the truth hurts sometimes.

...you appear to have read my post, but you don't know where I'm coming from. MS is smarter in BUSINESS--I never said that it always had the best product. In fact when Windows came along Mac was much much better--but they decided that MS would never catch on and continued to sell PC's with inflated prices, and they lost their chance at being the #1 pc vendor because of it. Again MS was worse product but better business (don't start a stupid debate over "MS bad business" etc my point is Microsoft is the leader even though Apple had superior products). I don't know if sony ps3 is better than xbox 360 or not and neither do you--if you disagree read my previous post again I'm not repeating my reason.

No it isn't illegal and Sony is a very very large corporation as Microsoft was able to take on the multi-million dollar corps like Apple but im not so sure about the Multi-billion dollar corps like sony.. As for XBOX specs and PS3 specs they have been released at the E3 expo in may.. The PS3 bests the MS offering by quite a bit on the CPU side and the MS Xbox is a touch faster on the GPU but who cares I watched the entire sony press conference and they were able to create and explosion and buildings using only computer code without even touching texures..HUGE

I agree with what you say. It's the same thing with the case of VHS versus Beta Max? Sony offered the Beta-Max system but probably was expensive and it competed against VHS which was prob. cheaper. Given the option people picked the cheaper price. Similar thing happened to Apple computer in the past when it went up against the IBM pc clones. Sony still has not learned their mistake and has not changed their business strategy. The majority of people won't care if the computer is a super duper computer. All they care is how much it'll hit them in their pockets. Unless you're one of the niche people who are so specialized that you need a mac to do your work then you won't have any choice but to buy an apple computer.
The other thing is how companies advertise themselves and how users as an extension of either microsoft or apple advertise the company's products. To me a lot of the people using apple and preaching the gospel of apple are in a cult-like state.
I'm drunk. I don't know what I'm talking about. Oh well. Seemed to make sense a while ago.