When Sony revealed the PlayStation 3 to compete against the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, they had something on the competition that would ultimately pay dividends. That was the installation and licensing of a Blu-Ray player. At the time it resulted in heavy costs per console, with the premium PS3 model shipping at $599 at launch, but it may end up not so bad for the company.
Market research analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities recently did a Q&A on his Gametrailers web show “Pach Attack!” One of the questions was in regards to how much Sony would benefit from the Xbox One’s implementation of a Blu-Ray player. Based on his estimations (due to the console’s $499 price point, industry standard royalty % and the $25 cost of a Blu-Ray drive), Pachter suggested that Sony will receive about $2-3 per Xbox One console sold.
He also mentions that if Microsoft were to sell roughly the same amount of consoles until their next-gen iteration (more or less than 75M), Sony would stand to make $150-250 million from Blu-Ray licencing alone, directly from Microsoft. While it won’t do much to alleviate the $8.5 billion Sony’s electronics section has lost over the past decade, it definitely won’t hurt.
We pose you a question, GameSiders. Will Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo win the 8th generation? Which console will sell the most by the end of its run? Let us know below!