Nintendo 3DS BOM Estimated to be $100.71: iSuppli

iSuppli did its typical teardown of a hot electronic device, and it's preliminary estimate on the Nintendo 3DS came up with $100.71. If you add in the obligatory $2.54 manufacturing cost of the 3DS, the total cost to produce the portable gaming system rises to $103.25, said iSuppli.

This is about a 33 percent increase over the BOM for the Nintendo DSi. Included in the differences between the BOM prices are the new 3D screen, $33.80 vs. $21.95; memory, $8.36 vs. $3.61; and the UI subsystem components (gyroscope, accelerometer), $6.81 vs. $3.98.

The 3DS also has a camera subsystem that 3D photographs. In order to do this, the 3DS uses two parallel VGA cameras in a module, plus a third VGA camera. Because VGA components are mature and inexpensive, the camera subsystem costs $4.70, or 4.7 percent of the BOM, up a measly $0.20 from the DSi.


While it seems like Nintendo is making a pretty penny at first glance, the BOM leaves out items such as development, support, marketing and so forth. It should also be remembered that the $249.99 is the retail price, not what Nintendo receives from retailers.