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Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 7:49 am

clone wrote:
the latest Ipad for example would cost between $10 to $65 more if made in the U.S.A. depending on who you believe and frankly I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it would only be $65 more.
Cite?
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David
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 9:41 am

Darkmage wrote:
clone wrote:
the latest Ipad for example would cost between $10 to $65 more if made in the U.S.A. depending on who you believe and frankly I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it would only be $65 more.
Cite?


Closest I can find right now.

There is another article that I can't find right now that's more along the lines of what clone read. According to that article the real value of overseas labor is flexibility.
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Scrotos
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 10:12 am

Ryhadar wrote:
I hear ya loud and clear. I don't understand why a significant number of people in this thread decided to harp on you for that. It's not like your kid is "depraved" either. Like you said, you've got a Wii and PS3 in there and I haven't seen you write that your son was whining to play the 360 either.


It's because:

lex-ington wrote:
I don't let my son play the 4GB model he got as a gift.


Think of the children! All the other responses picking apart the entertainment setup are mainly just because of that. If he had left that line out of it, probably no one would have hassled him and most would sagely nod their heads at his wisdom and steadfastness to not compromise.

Hell, due to cost, heat, and reliability issues I waited until 45 nm revisions of both the PS3 and XBox before I took the plunge.
 
clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 11:20 am

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 2:20 pm

clone wrote:
This American Life, rebuttal article to the Mike Daisy story.
You mean this one? This American Life Pulls Mike Daisey's Story about Apple's Labor Abuses in China Because Daisey Played Fast and Loose With the Facts? If not, how about a link?

David wrote:
There is another article that I can't find right now that's more along the lines of what clone read. According to that article the real value of overseas labor is flexibility.
I've seen similar articles that essentially summarize to "No, we couldn't make the iPad even if we tried." Most of the reason cited is much like you describe: We no longer have the manufacturing capability for that specific segment of the market and we can't recreate that capability due to inflexibility. So you can understand why I question the figure of $65.

clone wrote:
when I think about the auto bailouts and how angry the U.S. population was with them... [snip]
Dude. Stop now. Down that way lies the R&P forum and you don't want that.

Edited to add: I found the source of the $65. It's The New York Times who merely state
New York Times wrote:
It is hard to estimate how much more it would cost to build iPhones in the United States. However, various academics and manufacturing analysts estimate that because labor is such a small part of technology manufacturing, paying American wages would add up to $65 to each iPhone’s expense. Since Apple’s profits are often hundreds of dollars per phone, building domestically, in theory, would still give the company a healthy reward.
So, two problems right off the bat: First, there's no link to this claim and "various academics" is about as solid as "that professor I know who works out at the gym I use." Second, that $65 is exclusively labor costs, and doesn't include permitting, infrastructure, environmental cleanup, regulation and the rest of the supply chain.

Third: According to Xbit labs, the iPad costs only $260 to manufacturer, so I highly doubt it's merely about $65 in cost.
Last edited by Darkmage on Tue May 08, 2012 2:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Glorious
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 2:26 pm

Darkmage wrote:
So you can understand why I question the figure of $65.


Heh. Well, since clone is openly claiming it was cheaper because the Chinese government subsidized it I think he undermined his own point.

After all, it'd only cost <handwave >, provided the government pays for the rest minus <handwave>.

:roll:
 
Captain Ned
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue May 08, 2012 4:52 pm

Really? A Gaming thread is running close to the R&P border?

Knock it off.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
kamikaziechameleon
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 9:20 am

SPOOFE wrote:
More anecdotes! I know eight people with 360s at least three years old, and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.


I personally know dozens of people who have had the red ring... DOZENS, not one not two... so many I've lost count. Its like a right of passage at my lan parties everyone is on number 2 or 3. All my cousins, all my friends, all my parents friends kids, anyone in my classes back in school... it goes on and on. Yeah I guess that is anecdotal... When literally everyone in your life is on number 2 and you are pulling from over 30 people it does seem a bit anecdotal. And I'm a mobile person I'm talking my personal networks in several cities in different states.
 
gerbilspy
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 9:32 am

Vrock wrote:
SPOOFE wrote:
and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.

That's how I want to go. Preferably with that Jack and coke spilling off a stripper's tits.


LMAO!

I had an almost identical thought when I read his post...
Not retired anymore
 
Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 9:57 am

gerbilspy wrote:
Vrock wrote:
SPOOFE wrote:
and the only one to break had a Jack and coke spilled on it.
That's how I want to go. Preferably with that Jack and coke spilling off a stripper's tits.
I had an almost identical thought when I read his post...
Really?

Personally, I want to die at the ripe age of 73... after being shot by a jealous husband.
If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus
 
kamikaziechameleon
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 9:58 am

AbRASiON wrote:
I just sold mine - I had an Elite from when Forza 3 came out, they were 3 or 4 die shrinks in at that point.
I swear I do not lie when I say I only used that DVD tray 6 or 7 times and when I sold it the tray was stuck and I had to paperclip it.
Damn glad I tested it before giving it to the guy on ebay and glad it kept working after paperclipping

None the less, tray wouldn't open after being used 6 or 7 times,......................................... and the drive itself was barely used (I copied things to the HDD when MS allowed that)


ha ha ha, yeah I didn't even think about how my drive died in the first 6 months of ownership on my first 360, had to hit the open button and tap the front to get it budge then you pull it open all the way. Don't worry not covered in the extended warranty :) then there was my cousins power plug ripping out the back of his... don't know how that happened. My new box just crashes every hour or so... not red ring yet.
 
kamikaziechameleon
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 10:02 am

I don't like how my netflix account that I PAY FOR requires a payed live subscription to function on my xbox but is free on every other device ever created....
 
gmskking
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 10:04 am

I had my elite for 4 years. Very light use, took very good care of it. It still gave me the red lights eventually. All of you that have not have the red rings yet, just know that they are coming. Just because you have been lucky so far does not mean there is not an issue. You have been warned. I will not be buying the new Xbox either because of this issue. My PS2 still works great after all these years. Microsoft has no excuse.
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kamikaziechameleon
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 10:12 am

It does seem I'm the black sheep of xbox gamers. Me and mine are cursed. This thread is just about the most bizzar experience I've ever had. Even on game forums people complain about the failure rates with many on #2 or 3. It seems the tech report community is blessed by either not playing theirs enough to burn them up or simply being gifted with lucky picks. I do have one proposal. most of my friends and the hardcore console gaming community at large are marathon gamers and the lot. The system will get 8 hrs of use at a time, heck one of our lan parties will go for 10 or more hours with kegs and the like keeping the energy going. I expect you guys might on average be... responsible adults that simply don't get as much use out of their systems. This is a PC forum after all I expect your PC's are your primary game systems as is mine. Only reason I game 360 is because of split screen lan parties but they are long hot marathons of blood sweat and tears.
 
clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 10:29 am

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Corrado
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 1:28 pm

What makes anyone think that the $65 added on to the cost to have Americans build the devices would have any higher quality than the ones built in China? Its not the manual labor thats bad. Its the actual components that fail.

The main boards aren't even hand assembled anyways. Theres never a problem with the actual assembly, its always in the automated PCB creation/etc. Arguing otherwise is just plain silly. So essentially, we'd be paying $65 MORE for the SAME THING. On top of that, theres no way that Americans would be as efficient and obedient as the Chinese line workers are.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Thu May 10, 2012 2:23 pm

Even on game forums people complain about the failure rates with many on #2 or 3.

Maybe they exaggerate a skosh, hmmmm? Gamers Complain.

It seems the tech report community is blessed by either not playing theirs enough to burn them up or simply being gifted with lucky picks.

Or maybe, with a handful of exceptions, there's less wild pontification going on here, and more criticial thinking.
 
clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Fri May 11, 2012 12:32 am

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Fri May 11, 2012 8:15 am

clone wrote:
an additional $10 to $65 on top of the $260 sounds more than reasonable.
Agreed, which is why I'm saying that the reason they're not manufactured here is likely not a reduction in $65 of profit per device. Either the true cost difference isn't $65, or there are other factors.

clone wrote:
todays capitalism, when billions are in play ya gotta sweeten the pot.
This kind of undermines your point, as Glorious points out. If the Chinese are subsidizing their industry to make it attractive to foreign companies, such as Apple, those massive expenditures are not represented in that $65 price difference. Imagine how much it would cost Apple to build that kind of capacity in the US. I would imagine it would work out to much more than $65 per iPad.

clone wrote:
it's solid enough, did you listen to the episode or just noticed it's an episode?
Since you weren't in a linking mood, despite me asking you for one, I found the NYT article - not podcast - where the $65 figure surfaced. I even quoted the paragraph which only mentioned increased labor costs. The episode of TAL that I found doesn't mention the $65 in the text and forgive me if I express some doubt about how I'm supposed to listen to a podcast debunking a person who rails against Apple with the notion that somewhere in there is a nugget of where that $65 comes from. It's an episode already talking about liars and bad sources. Convince me. You can start by confirming that I had the right link.

If you've got a source that breaks out or at least summarizes all the factors that go into this $65 price difference, then by all means link to it and I'll go check it out. But I note that you have provided jack and squat in terms of sources for your claims so far. Dave, at least, provided a link. More on that later.

clone wrote:
even your discovery that Ipad's total cost is $260 to build, now tack on another $10 to $65 in labor & environmental costs translating to a 25% cost increase per unit to build in NA which sounds about right vs the fabricated 500% which sounds ridiculous.
Hmm. Two points: First, I really doubt that $65 includes environmental costs and even if it did, that still leaves out permitting, taxes, unions, warehousing and the rest of the logistics chain. Second, I agree with you that the "500%" increase is unlikely. I bust your hump for no sources, but the 500% is even thinner.

David wrote:
Closest I can find right now.There is another article that I can't find right now that's more along the lines of what clone read.
I went into your link and followed the trail to the paper submitted by the ADB Institute. From the working paper:
Xing and Detert wrote:
An interesting hypothetical scenario is one where Apple had all iPhones assembled in the US. Assuming that the wages of US workers are ten times as high as those of their PRC counterparts and their productivity would be equal in 2009, if iPhones were assembled in the US the total assembly cost would rise to US$65 and total manufacturing cost would be pushed to approximately US$240. Selling iPhones assembled by US workers at US$500 per unit would still leave a 50% profit margin for Apple.
Thanks for the link, but nothing I've seen touches on the difficulties and costs in running a major manufacturing operation in the USA specifically as it relates to the iPad. I'm not too surprised, actually. I would expect such analysis to be done at the corporate level, expensive to research and probably an industrial secret. Nobody would know how much it costs better than Apple would.

In conclusion, it probably would cost much more per iPad to manufacture it domestically. How much more, I cannot say.
If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus
 
clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Fri May 11, 2012 11:24 am

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Fri May 11, 2012 1:10 pm

clone wrote:
the factors have been stated, the NYT article covered the reasons.
Oh do tell. Show me where they list the factors.

clone wrote:
1st off in NA the existing infrastructure was partially established for Apple to exploit prior to them moving to China.... they had the factory and the employees to get the ball rolling.
Can you expand on this? What was Apple's manufacturing capability before the introduction of the iPhone and when did they shut down their US manufacturing presence? The closest thing I can find is a factory they built in the 80s for $20 million that they shut down soon after.

clone wrote:
for a sake of Barney and Friends math if the cost of the facility and infrastructure to produce Ipads was $2,000,000,000 spread across 55,000,000 Ipads already sold the cost would be $36 per unit and if Apple sells another 15,000,000 in the next 3 months which is likely a conservative number it'll drop to $28 and if another 15,000,000 which again is a conservative number given the dramatic rise in sales and marketshare it'll drop to $23 just over the course of 6 months.
You make a good point. I had forgotten just how many iPads have hit the market.

clone wrote:
3rdly I've made numerous points which is why it's annoying when 1 point is taken out of context to debunk another when the opposite is true when considered in context, I stated reasons why companies were so eager to move to China which was because China offered them everything up front to make the transition as hassle free as possible along with a cheap labor pool.... this is the essence of the NYT article which has little to do with the difference in manufacturing costs once the operation is up and running.
Ah. So if I understand your argument correctly, the Chinese government's willingness to subsidize these transition costs are mostly for convenience's sake and at most add up to $65/iPad in manufacturing costs?

clone wrote:
I'm not sure many of the costs you mentioned apply, it's been shown that corporations in the U.S. are paying almost no taxes whether it be via income, facility or logistical.
Oh, FFS. From an article in MacWorld, June 3rd, 2011:
MacWorld wrote:
In its fiscal year 2010, ending in September, Apple reported income of $18.5 billion and paid $2.7 billion in income taxes, or about 15 percent.
As I was surfing around, looking for these US Apple factories, I came across this article in Forbes entitled Why Apple Doesn't Build Products in the US. Alas, it's not as detailed as I would like. But it does mention a 20-30% loss of profitability from taxes alone, which translates into $48-81 per iPad. That doesn't include labor costs, so assuming that claim (I won't deign to call it an analysis) is roughly accurate, that puts us at $113 markup from taxes & labor combined. That's before we tackle the overhead of factory space, legal compliance, logistics, etc.

clone wrote:
additionally their was mention of union costs which to my knowledge their is no union at Apple....
There's also no manufacturing at Apple. Let us not forget, the design engineers and middle management at GM aren't unionized either, yet nobody would claim that unions don't play a large part in GM's operation, or their operational expenses.

clone wrote:
you also mentioned logistical costs of producing in the U.S. while ignoring the benefits and the scale of the operation, some of fixed costs being the very same that get dramatically reduced by producing near your market.
Most of the components in the iPad are produced in Taiwan, Korea and China. Some pieces are from the USA and I think one piece is from Germany. But the majority is local to Taiwan. It would appear there is more of a reduction in costs to be had by locating your manufacturing close to your suppliers than there is locating close to your consumers.
If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus
 
killadark
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Fri May 11, 2012 2:49 pm

i guess i have been slightly luckier than the others here my launch 360 still works
the only problems being the tray getting stuck while opening and closing a light punch on the top fixes that i also get the occasional red ring but it goes away :D
quite surprised it still works after i dropped it 3 meters from the table (tripped over the wire :oops: ) while it was running my gta 4 game cd got scratched up but that was it.
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clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Sat May 12, 2012 2:21 am

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Darkmage
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Mon May 21, 2012 7:52 am

Dude, if you're just going to handwave away everything except labor, then sure I can see the difference in local vs overseas manufacturing being only $65. And next time, read the article more carefully before you close it and decide to flatly contradict what it says.
If there is one thing a remote-controlled, silent and unseeable surveillance/killing machine needs, it’s more whimsy. -- Marcus
 
clone
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Sat May 26, 2012 4:38 pm

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Last edited by clone on Tue Jan 14, 2014 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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kamikaziechameleon
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Re: xbox... WHY!

Tue Jul 24, 2012 6:50 am

I want to thank the mac fans and haters for jacking this thread. Well done :wink:

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