To be a bit cynical, it also provides some extra product differentiation between those receivers and the processors (AVM50v and D2v), both of which offer multichannel analog inputs. From what I've been told by a D2v owner who also beta tests players for OPPO, I think those processors convert the multichannel analog to digital for bass management and ARC.

Retaining a multichannel analog input is still desirable in my mind - even if you put a great analog section in to the receiver or processor, you still have some customers who have older players and want to use that multichannel analog input. Same with analog video inputs, which are rapidly disappearing from the equation for new source components but still deserve to be included in at least limited quantity to support legacy hardware. If manufacturing costs started getting VE'd, I'd expect any sort of analog bass management or A/D conversion for that input to have been placed on the chopping block first.


PS3 is probably a poor example. Game consoles from Sony and Microsoft have reportedly sold for less than their manufacturing costs at launch (and for a good while afterward) for the last few generations, but they do that because it makes them more competitive and allows them to make their money off game sales. Consumer electronics companies (excluding ones that also own movie studios and record labels) don't make any money from software sales. A cheap multichannel analog output on a disc player is not a huge cost increase. A really excellent analog output is pretty pricey, but it's also pretty rare. Sony didn't incur the extra cost on the PS3, probably for a number of reasons. One would be that first cost (an extra $10 in manufacturing costs, maybe). Another was rear panel space - game consoles tend to be "simple" at the rear panel, and an eight-channel cluster of RCA's would have been hard to fit. A collateral side effect that I'm sure they were happy to get was Blu-ray player sales - the only reason to have multichannel analog outputs was to support multichannel lossless audio, which means Blu-ray and (for the early PS3's) SACD. If you can't use HDMI for that because you have an older receiver, Sony would be happy to sell you a standalone BD player instead. (Oops, I'm being cynical again this morning...)