Here's an interesting find from The Cost magazine:
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), the variant of plastic used by Nintendo in their upcoming console, Wii, has seen a continuing rise in cost to manufacture due directly to the sharply rising cost of petroleum, the raw material that is chemically altered to produce commercial plastics.
Analysts predict that the cost of petroleum will continue to rise until the petroleum reserves are depleted in an estimated 40 years. To combat this problem and to keep their consoles inexpensive to manufacture, Nintendo has expressed its intention to our reporters to begin production of a new line of cases for its console made of a nanocarbon-derived material that president Iwata says is "very cheap, 100 times stronger than steel, slicker than Teflon, lightweight, and can be made very thin, made to stretch, and built into any shape".
The first generation Wii consoles will be cased in regular plastic with the nanocarbon models becoming available within a small amount of time afterwards.
This raises the pertinent question: what about Microsoft and Sony? When contacted for comment about rising cost of plastic production and how that would affect the manufacture of their consoles; the PS3 and Xbox360, respectively, only the president of Sony, Ken Kutaragi, responded to our inquisition, saying:
"The rising cost of plastic is very real to us and an alternative is being sought."
When asked further why Sony was not adopting the same nanocarbon technology that Nintendo was using to combat the problem, Kutaragi replied:
"We don't want to do that no matter how sensible a thing it is because it would look like we copied Nintendo."
And thus the fate of the Playstation 3's case manufacturing costs, although not enough for the consumer to notice, will end up hurting Sony more than if they had adopted the nanocarbon technology.
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), the variant of plastic used by Nintendo in their upcoming console, Wii, has seen a continuing rise in cost to manufacture due directly to the sharply rising cost of petroleum, the raw material that is chemically altered to produce commercial plastics.
Analysts predict that the cost of petroleum will continue to rise until the petroleum reserves are depleted in an estimated 40 years. To combat this problem and to keep their consoles inexpensive to manufacture, Nintendo has expressed its intention to our reporters to begin production of a new line of cases for its console made of a nanocarbon-derived material that president Iwata says is "very cheap, 100 times stronger than steel, slicker than Teflon, lightweight, and can be made very thin, made to stretch, and built into any shape".
The first generation Wii consoles will be cased in regular plastic with the nanocarbon models becoming available within a small amount of time afterwards.
This raises the pertinent question: what about Microsoft and Sony? When contacted for comment about rising cost of plastic production and how that would affect the manufacture of their consoles; the PS3 and Xbox360, respectively, only the president of Sony, Ken Kutaragi, responded to our inquisition, saying:
"The rising cost of plastic is very real to us and an alternative is being sought."
When asked further why Sony was not adopting the same nanocarbon technology that Nintendo was using to combat the problem, Kutaragi replied:
"We don't want to do that no matter how sensible a thing it is because it would look like we copied Nintendo."
And thus the fate of the Playstation 3's case manufacturing costs, although not enough for the consumer to notice, will end up hurting Sony more than if they had adopted the nanocarbon technology.
