Sony taking big hit on each PS3 sold; Xbox 360 in the black
 

Market research firm iSuppli has torn down the PlayStation 3 to see what's inside. In doing so, iSuppli confirmed what we reported back in February: the PS3 is expensive to manufacture and Sony is taking a serious hit on each console sold.

Describing the PS3 as an "engineering masterpiece," iSuppli estimates that the more expensive $599 console costs $840.35 to build, leaving Sony with a $241.35 loss on each console. The picture is worse for the cheaper, $499 version. Sony takes a hit of $306.85 per $499 console sold, due primarily to the lack of any substantial savings from the hardware differences between the two versions of the PS3. For instance, the 40GB difference in hard drive space between the two versions of the PS3 only saves Sony $11 and omitting 802.11b/g on the cheaper console only saves Sony an additional $15.50.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061116-8239.html