I have to say that I think they're really making their real profits on the extra accessories. For one thing, a lot of people likely buy the power plug so they can have one dedicated to the dock and one for when it's undocked. The MSRP on the official plug is currently $30 (ok, 29.99, whatever) whereas an equivalent third party power adapter would be about $10-14 at the outset (assuming equal build quality. I realize there are cheaper options, but they are of a lower quality.) The Joycons themselves sell for $50 each ($100 if you needed both) and an equivalently capable Bluetooth controller would be around $25 at the very outset. There's even a separate charging dock for the Joycons at $30 (and this thing is roughly equivalent to basically a phone dock at $10 as far as all that is necessary to make it. The Joycons use a lot less power to charge than the Switch does...) Not to mention all the third party accessories that still pay a license to be legal. (Though there are a bunch of Chinese companies that jumped in on the bandwagon selling on Amazon and the like who likely didn't pay the licenses, every accessory you see in the retaillers like those rubber grips for the Joycons did pay.) That much is just pure profit margin and nothing else for Nintendo since the cost of production goes to the third party manufacturers with those.
But here's where it really rakes in: The Pro Controller. $70 for the equivalent of a $30 or so controller. And how many people who bought the Switch rushed to grab a Pro Controller right away? Maybe even two if they can. After all, they likely want to be able to play multiplayer with them. So many of these are selling that these are as hard to get as the Switch and if you look on Amazon it's selling for $94 right now thanks to the scalpers taking advantage of the fact that Nintendo can't keep supply up to meet the current demand. Any time a retailler gets the Pro Controller in, it seems to disappear pretty quickly despite that ridiculous price tag. (And I couldn't help but to notice that you can can buy the Wii-U Pro Controller -- which is practically the same thing as far as what actually goes into it just minus one button -- for $50 MSRP and that's after the significant markup... Curiously enough the black one seems to be $40 everywhere actually. No clue why it's cheaper than the white one, but again, this is after a significant profit margin is added...) That is a really incredible markup for the hardware going into this thing.
And yes, they had to pay to use it. Otherwise they'd be looking at a very big lawsuit. However, this is what you call a "fixed cost." That is they pay some gigantic amount to license it for use with this system and that's a one time thing (or at worst something they have to renew from time to time perhaps.) It costs a lot no doubt, but the cost is an overhead cost and gets to be spread across everything they sell. If you look at how it would affect the cost of each individual system it likely ends up in the cents range. If that much... (Upon a quick google search I'm seeing numbers like $300,000, which is absolutely nothing on the scale of a device that is expecting to sell in the millions.)
But here's where it really rakes in: The Pro Controller. $70 for the equivalent of a $30 or so controller. And how many people who bought the Switch rushed to grab a Pro Controller right away? Maybe even two if they can. After all, they likely want to be able to play multiplayer with them. So many of these are selling that these are as hard to get as the Switch and if you look on Amazon it's selling for $94 right now thanks to the scalpers taking advantage of the fact that Nintendo can't keep supply up to meet the current demand. Any time a retailler gets the Pro Controller in, it seems to disappear pretty quickly despite that ridiculous price tag. (And I couldn't help but to notice that you can can buy the Wii-U Pro Controller -- which is practically the same thing as far as what actually goes into it just minus one button -- for $50 MSRP and that's after the significant markup... Curiously enough the black one seems to be $40 everywhere actually. No clue why it's cheaper than the white one, but again, this is after a significant profit margin is added...) That is a really incredible markup for the hardware going into this thing.
The Switch does use exFAT. The reason they didn't go with some other filesystem is because they need something that will "just work" for ordinary people. Filesystems that won't work on a typical user's devices won't work. Sure, some of us can fire up Linux or whatever and access a huge variety of filesystems, but for your typical person -- aka Nintendo's main audience -- it needs to pop into a typical Windows or Mac OSX system and "just work."If they had to get a patent for exfat, they would have used something like XFS like Samsung does.
And yes, they had to pay to use it. Otherwise they'd be looking at a very big lawsuit. However, this is what you call a "fixed cost." That is they pay some gigantic amount to license it for use with this system and that's a one time thing (or at worst something they have to renew from time to time perhaps.) It costs a lot no doubt, but the cost is an overhead cost and gets to be spread across everything they sell. If you look at how it would affect the cost of each individual system it likely ends up in the cents range. If that much... (Upon a quick google search I'm seeing numbers like $300,000, which is absolutely nothing on the scale of a device that is expecting to sell in the millions.)
Last edited by Nazosan,