News.com have a speculative article with info from analysts estimating the component cost to Sony when they ship the long awaited PS3 console. So far the estimate is around $800-$900. Depending on the street price when they launch, which is expected to be much less than the cost, but still somewhere around $500-$600, each sale of the console will be a large loss for Sony.
Why can they plan to sell each console for such a loss? Sales from games and licensing is the major income source, not the actual hardware itself. Sony has played this game before with the previous Playstation consoles, as has Microsoft with their XBox console launches.
According to some sources like this article on gameshout.com, Sony is still committed to a Spring 2006 launch desipite all the noise and rumours that the launch is delayed for as much as a year. This article says Sony will launch with or without game titles from 3rd party developers (who have said they are not ready for a Spring launch), as Sony’s titles are apparently complete and ready to go. Time will tell…