Agreed. Apple should be net benefit from my calculations in real $$. A current IPhone is manufactured in China with components sourced semi-internationally (mostly china I -- assume--.). As the USD rises, the net USD revenues per phone drop, but the total cost to manufacture stays the same (unless they sign their agreements tagged to the USD with their factories). Only costs incurred in USD would rise relative to the overseas sales price, given that this is an iPhone, and its 'engineered' in the US, this is likely an insignificant portion of the individual phone costs. My guess is that patent licensing poses a bigger $ value per phone. However, since the USD is stronger, any ability to purchase phones for USD priced countries would result in an increase in revenues. Ultimately, as a net importer, a strong USD should be better than a weak USD. It does open them to more competition from non-USD involved smartphone makers, as their total costs would be lower in the US market as a result, but given their recent financial results, its pretty hard to believe that they aren't more than offsetting a decline in overall revenue with an increase in overall margin. And margin is what matters.

Hey there ark1...

Just FYI.. a Monopoly is typically considered one company controlling the entire market and supply of a category of products or services. (See Bell before the Breakup)

Your sentence itself points out that this is not the case ...

First, plural suppliers of a product category may be an oligopoly but not a monopoly. Second, mixing plural and non-plural subject references is just plain wrong.

The cost of games today is determined by market forces. Look at the cost of a movie at a theatre and compare that to a game. While a game is 4x the price of a night at the movies, it has replayability which the movie does not.. Therefore the market is happy with the value and purchases it.
Piracy tends to be a difficult concept for economy theory..

while its theft in a simple form, the act does not remove the ability for the seller to sell the stolen item. So, it is possible for additional sales to be generated by word of mouth through pirated items, piracy can only be considered a net benefit if the revenue gained through it exceeds the opportunity cost of selling to those who would have discovered it only without piracy happening. Obviously, since the act of piracy is illegal, its difficult to quantify and determine how it fully affects games in general and their pricing.