News iFixit now sells genuine Xbox replacement parts but at ridiculous prices — $599 for an Xbox Series X motherboard when a new console costs $499

[Admin]

iFixit now sells official replacement parts for Xbox Series X/S consoles and accessories.

iFixit now sells genuine Xbox replacement parts but at ridiculous prices — $599 for an Xbox Series X motherboard when a new console costs $499 : Read more

 

[hotaru251]

Unless you're repairing a collector's edition console, it would seem that buying a new Xbox motherboard is simply more expensive and troublesome than purchasing a new Xbox console outright.

even IF youre repairing a collectors edition console...its still cheaper to just buy new one & gut it as you can get the MB & then sell the rest for repair parts online making $ back.

 

[coolitic]

They only add these "OFFICIAL/CERTIFIED" repair programs to side-step right-to-repair regulations, and I take these ridiculous prices to be proof of that.

 

[jlake3]

They only add these "OFFICIAL/CERTIFIED" repair programs to side-step right-to-repair regulations, and I take these ridiculous prices to be proof of that.

Quite possibly, but having worked in the supply chain for the automotive industry, there are some parts where logistics and inventory management and such are really not set up to deliver a single unit to an end user. You cannot just walk down the the factory floor, grab a part off the conveyor, slap it in a FedEx box, and charge BOM cost plus shipping (unless you hate your own inventory people).

There's almost definitely some room for improvement, but given that the motherboard assembly is one of the most expensive parts of the console and you're adding irregular, small quantity shipments to a parts center not on the usual delivery route, the overhead of storage and repacking from bulk containers into individual boxes and operating the parts center, some margin to absorb the risk you get stuck with parts no one orders... full motherboard replacements are always gonna be questionable value.

 

[Naval Cryptologist]

Time to start a microminiature repair company. Especially with all the electronics in cars. The first person to successfully do this will be the next minted billionaire. Think about it, right now electronics repair is just diagnose and replace assembly. Repairing at the component level will be a huge change.

 

[SirStephenH]

The Series X (disc drive version) requires a paired disc drive just like past consoles (the console would still function without a paired drive but the disc drive would be unusable), but it's not included with the new motherboards. You have to buy a used motherboard with paired drive for $399.99. With a Series X (with disc drive) normally found for $449.99, there's still no reason to go through the time, effort, and potential screwups to save $50 vs buying a new one. It's even pointless for special edition consoles. The electronics come out in one big piece, just buy a new console and swap the insides. You might even be able to make $30-$40 back by selling the unused shell.

They also offer new motherboards for the Series X (All-Digital) for $449.99, which again is the price of a new disc drive version or $50 more than what the All-Digital version can be bought for (they can always be found for $399.99). Still not worth it.

 

[SirStephenH]

Time to start a microminiature repair company. Especially with all the electronics in cars. The first person to successfully do this will be the next minted billionaire. Think about it, right now electronics repair is just diagnose and replace assembly. Repairing at the component level will be a huge change.

There are already businesses that do that kind of work on video cards and other electronics. It's only worthwhile though if they're expensive or irreplaceable and the Series X doesn't fit either group.

 

[Naval Cryptologist]

There are already businesses that do that kind of work on video cards and other electronics. It's only worthwhile though if they're

 

[thestryker]

I could understand the cost being the price of a new console (or close to it), but 20% more than a new one seems pointless. Hopefully this is something that will shift down over time, especially for new console(s) launch.

 

[Notton]

You all know that consoles are sold at a loss (except for the switch) and they make money on the software sales, right?

 

[thestryker]

You all know that consoles are sold at a loss (except for the switch) and they make money on the software sales, right?

The last time this was universally true was 360/PS3 era. Both Sony and Microsoft have designed the x86 era consoles to be as close to even margin/profitable as can be. This is why Sony raised prices on the PS5 (outside the US) to maintain whatever slim margin existed. With the older consoles they could rely on node shrinks and other optimizations to lower costs over the console life time. This isn't really a viable solution anymore due to the increased cost of the more advanced nodes along with comparatively diminishing returns.

I believe the PS5 Pro SoC is about the same size as the PS5, but using one of the N5 derivatives instead of N7. Aside from the additional NAND and SoC the BOM on the PS5 Pro and PS5 should be largely identical which means Sony is charging $250 over the standard digital model for those two parts. It's very likely the increased wafer cost makes up the majority of that cost increase.

 

[Baeloro1481]

The price for motherboard is likely to include the cost of obtaining a whole new Xbox, disassemble it without damage, removing the motherboard and laser daughter board to resell at $599.

If you think there are new Xbox motherboards sitting around waiting to be supplied for repair... if I told you the terms ifixit had to follow for consignment of samsung screens? You'd be skeptical too.

At this point, xboxes are more valuable as a whole unit. If you want a mobo, you gonna pay a premium for a company like ifixit to get a whole xbox and part it out for you.

They also gonna benefit from having extra parts on hand from each unit. Things that aren't mated to the mobo, like the psu, disc drive (sans daughter board) and shell parts. Suddenly a $500 xbox is capable of $750+ roi or better.

I could be wrong, but I will share for you the alternative method for parts supply, and it's worse. Samsung consigns entire parts to ifixit, forcing them to do full battery replacements whenever screens are replaced.

This creates additional waste and prevents users from reusing a battery. The consignment also requires customer information to be sent to samsung, enough to identify an individual AND their specific device in a sea of people/devices...

 

[hannibal]

You all know that consoles are sold at a loss (except for the switch) and they make money on the software sales, right?

Yep.. that is the spot.
People very often wonder why they don´t make "console" PC parts... The reason is. They would be very expensive! And not upgradeable... Those motherboard are sold with very slim margin! So PC parts with good profit... Would be about twice as expensive as this motherboard in here... Why would any PC gamer buy product that is as fast as console... about the double the price. That is why we don´t get "Console" grade stuff to PC market!

 

[thisisaname]

Parts for anything have always been more expensive than the BOM would indicate.
If you made a car out of parts it would be a lot more expensive than buying a new car.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

There are already businesses that do that kind of work on video cards and other electronics. It's only worthwhile though if they're expensive or irreplaceable and the Series X doesn't fit either group.

Having worked in the automotive industry, there are companies that troubleshoot and repair computers i.e. ECM and BCM (electronic and body control modules) down to the component level. I had a vehicle that had an ECM problem and I found a company that wanted me to ship it and they would repair it and send it back.

 

[edzieba]

Quite possibly, but having worked in the supply chain for the automotive industry, there are some parts where logistics and inventory management and such are really not set up to deliver a single unit to an end user. You cannot just walk down the the factory floor, grab a part off the conveyor, slap it in a FedEx box, and charge BOM cost plus shipping (unless you hate your own inventory people).

There's almost definitely some room for improvement, but given that the motherboard assembly is one of the most expensive parts of the console and you're adding irregular, small quantity shipments to a parts center not on the usual delivery route, the overhead of storage and repacking from bulk containers into individual boxes and operating the parts center, some margin to absorb the risk you get stuck with parts no one orders... full motherboard replacements are always gonna be questionable value.

That's under the assumption that distributing individual components to endpoints for consumption is some new and novel thing, rather than the norm for device repair that has been occurring as long as the consoles have been in production. Having ifixit involved simplifies the logistics: instead of dispatch of individual repair parts to individual repair centres on demand, parts can be batched and shipped in bulk to ifixit's fulfilment centres, and ifixit can deal with the final leg to end users.

Either Microsoft's supply chain is so mind-bogglingly poorly designed that it costs them internally more than the cost of a new console to repair a console, or this is just a punitive markup.

 

[Dreadpirateflappy]

You all know that consoles are sold at a loss (except for the switch) and they make money on the software sales, right?

That hasn't been true for years... Both Microsoft and Sony confirmed last gen (let alone this gen) that both consoles were sold at a profit.

Why do people still repeat this myth as of it's true?