The $100 million sounds slightly less impressive if you take it to mean controller R&D across the entire Xbox One project.
Let's assume that Microsoft started work on the console in 2007, two years after the Xbox 360 launched. Our $100 million has now become $16 million per year. Developing the controller is going to involve a lot of people: software, hardware, QA, design, supply chain, fabrication, etc.
Let's say that Microsoft has a team of a hundred people working on the controller (personally I think that's a very conservative guess). So of our $16 million we've easily eaten up half of that in labour costs. Prototyping, gearing and tooling up, and all the various other expenses associated with designing and manufacturing electronics eats the rest up pretty quickly.
This is obviously 'back of the napkin', hugely simplified conjecture, but I can definitely see how $100 million becomes a fairly reasonable figure over time.
Comments
The $100 million sounds slightly less impressive if you take it to mean controller R&D across the entire Xbox One project.
Let's assume that Microsoft started work on the console in 2007, two years after the Xbox 360 launched. Our $100 million has now become $16 million per year. Developing the controller is going to involve a lot of people: software, hardware, QA, design, supply chain, fabrication, etc.
Let's say that Microsoft has a team of a hundred people working on the controller (personally I think that's a very conservative guess). So of our $16 million we've easily eaten up half of that in labour costs. Prototyping, gearing and tooling up, and all the various other expenses associated with designing and manufacturing electronics eats the rest up pretty quickly.
This is obviously 'back of the napkin', hugely simplified conjecture, but I can definitely see how $100 million becomes a fairly reasonable figure over time.