With the Nintendo 3DS, the Japanese video game company is betting that it can once again take hold of mass entertainment , just as it did nearly five years ago when it launched the Wii with its innovative motion-based controller.
Its Sunday at midnight debut greeted throngs of people waiting in queues around the world.
Analysis shows that the company stands to make almost $150 per each unit sold.
While powerful and innovative, designers managed to keep the inside looking relatively simple and elegant.
Let's take a look inside
Nintendo’s groundbreaking 3DS handheld gaming system carries a bill of materials (BOM) of $100.71, up from the $75 price of the original DSi. This compares to a retail cost of $249.99 in the United States. IHSThe 3DS is a elegant machine on the outside. But inside revealsmuch more of the same attention to detail.IHSAt $6.81, or 6.8 percent of the total BOM, the user interface subsystem of the 3DS is significantly more expensive that of the DSi, with a 71.1 percent premium. The 3DS subsystem adds a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope from InvenSense, as well as an accelerometer manufactured by STMicroelectronics, which allows the game system to operate using motion-sensitive control. These devices, plus a more expensive audio codec, were the main sources of additional costs in this functional section of the 3DS.The wireless local area network (WLAN) subsystem of the 3DS carries a cost $5.00, accounting for 5 percent of the BOM. The WLAN module features a single-chip solution: the Atheros AR6014G-AL1C 802.11b/g device. This represents major design progress for Nintendo, which used a dual-chip approach for the DSi, years after most other designs had adopted more efficient singe-chip solutions.IHSAnother significant subsystem in the 3DS is the applications processing chip. At approximately $10, the apps processor accounts for roughly 10 percent of the 3DS’s total BOM, and is 15 percent more expensive than the equivalent DSi semiconductor around its time of release. At the present time, the old Sharp processor likely would cost less than $7 per unit.As in the DSi, IHS believes the apps processor in the 3DS is manufactured by Sharp—and is labeled as being produced in Japan. The Sharp assumption comes from the similarity in markings on the silicon die inside the chip, resembling those from the Nintendo DSi. Similar pattern matching on die markings is commonly used to determine chip provenance. It is also likely this apps processor was custom designed for Nintendo by another chip intellectual property and design company. An analysis of this apps processor suggests it delivers significantly higher performance than the apps processor in the DSi.IHS
