I can't agree with this. You are assuming a cost-plus model. Many things are market-priced.
If you are the only game in town, and you have a great product, you sell it for the most you can. You aren't a charity.
The customer always has the option to not buy your product.
If you are the only game in town, and you have a great product, you sell it for the most you can.
Pay attention. What I said:
going to have to charge at least $3,160 a copy to make a profit on the
project.
*at least*. You can charge $4K, or $40K, if you think you can get away with
it. Or you can sell it for $2K, if you think you can sell 200 cheaper copies
rather than 100 expensive ones. But unless your sales price times the sales
volume is more than your sunk R&D cost, you're going to lose money on it.
(And yes, there's counter-examples. Sony did the PS/3 as a loss leader. Which
makes my point - they *knew* that sucker was going to lose money because there
was no price point at which the expected sales times the price was more than
what they spent in development. Only reason they did it anyhow was because
they had a business plan to make the money elsewhere...)