Your issue here is that yu do not understand what the tech is actually being used for, or more so, what kinda tech you need to achieve certain things.That's xbox one strategy. And there's no guarantee that BoM will be lower in its 3rd year. It's a bad gamble.
You're tying an entire generation and the next to a low raster, low bandwidth, low power mini device.
Sure. We agree on that.
That's not a dumb thing to do. You already too keen to tie the next generation to a 15 watt APU, you cannot criticize a 20GB PS6 now. RTX 5080 16GB RAM can do proper path tracing with DLSS4.
Series S looks like crap because it's close to the power of PS handheld.
I'm not the one trying it to a 15 watt console.
Whether 20 or 30 wouldn't matter for PS6. They can always render native resolution an acceptable level to fit 20GB and reconstruct to 4K.
The Pro version with 30GB just means higher native resolution to fill that RAM (and/or higher FPS), and gain slightly cleaner image.
Sure. But a proper PS6 has to be affordable and not priced $800. The point.
The switch has shown that you do not need a 30GB $800 console to sell 100M.It's not about you or any of us here who will pay $1000 for next-gen PS6. It's about selling 100M or at least close to it.
For that higher bandwidth 30GB PS6, they can always offer PS6 Pro down the road. They can afford the Pro to sell for $1000.
So we both agree the prices of memory and storage are inevitably going to come down right?Delaying for prices to come down would be the most stupid thing Sony, or anyone, can do. And they surely aren't that stupid, they have a front row seat into this current gen, and we have, for the first time in gaming history see prices go up over the course of a gen and not go down. And yet you somehow think that people in a conference room at Sony are considering how waiting for prices to go down on future and even more expensive tech is the right play?
MS was ahead of the curve on this since way back in 2019/2020 when they said that hardware price reductions wouldn't be as easy to achieve going forward anymore, and that was before the AI crisis and Trump.
It would be completely stupid for a company like Sony to gamble on the possibility that prices can come down between now and 2030 as opposed to secure the best deal they can now, eat the cost, and if prices do come down or stay the same, they are fine anyway. I mean.... what if they get more expensive? Can you, with a straight face, after seeing this current gen, say that it is not possible?
if fully adopting a cross-gen strategy, while Sony would still subsidize costs, they likely wouldn't need to do so too aggressively. They can comfortably release a PS6 and not plan on selling more than 10-12M units in its first year. And sell those to the people more likely to pay the most. And when prices start coming down, they can start dropping the price and increasing supply. There is no need to "gain traction right off the bat" when all your games on the PS6 will also be on the PS5.
You don't just cut RAM down to 20GB and call it a day. Those are not the kinda specs you want to fuck with when launching a new console that is supposed to be supported for the next 10-14 years. That kinda decision would hamstring your entire generation before it even starts.
And like I said above, they do not need to get PS6 to mass market point at launch, all they need to do is make sure there are PlayStation consoles in that price range, be that the PS5 or the PS6 handheld, they can (and should) launch PS6 at what would have otherwise been PlayStation Pro pricing, so $750- $800. All will be fine as long as they have a PS6H at around $499 and even better a PS5 at $399/$499 at that time.
I have no idea... but its a commodity, so if you remove whatever is making the price high, then the prices should come down. But we have no idea how long that will take, or even worse... if the price wouldn't go up even more.So we both agree the prices of memory and storage are inevitably going to come down right?
I have no idea... but its a commodity, so if you remove whatever is making the price high, then the prices should come down. But we have no idea how long that will take, or even worse... if the price wouldn't go up even more.
What any company with half a brain would do, is make their plans based on the absolute worst-case scenario, which isn't just that prices may stay the same, but that they could even go up. And its thinking like that that probably led Sony to make a handheld and home console.
Mind you, when Sony made that choice, they were only tasked with the realization that node shinks no longer translates to cheaper consoles, and that necessitated them having to have two consoles with drastically different APU sizes so they can have a "cheaper" option. And then the RAM crisis happened... which just further validates that kinda thinking to begin with.
It's not a console, though, at least not in the traditional sense... It's a handheld.![]()
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PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan Believes Consoles Like The Xbox Series S Won't Do Well
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan seems to think that lower-powered consoles like the Xbox Series S will not do well in the current market.www.thegamer.com
Disagree. A 10% perf lose isn't negligible either.Devs would much prefer 24GB with bit a lower performance.
AAA Games take a lot of time and money to make now. 5-8 years and you're spending 200-350M a game.Third-party publishers, perhaps (multiplatform is essentially by the purpose of maximizing profit and they're required to pay platform fees), but I don't see why Sony cannot.
Yes, you can. Unless you believe that PS6 will never have the install base to sustain it. And no Sony game ever needed more than 5M units to break even.AAA Games take a lot of time and money to make now. 5-8 years and you're spending 200-350M a game.
If a game needs 5-10M to break even, you can't afford to look it to "PS6".
Sony has been working on the handheld much earlier than before the AI boom happened. It was because of the need to enter the growing mobile gaming market, not because they predicted an increase in component prices. The exorbitant increase in console prices is driven by lack of manufacturing capacity from the logic and memory fabs not because of the slow progression in moving to newer nodes. So its a supply constraint not some technological change as you suggest. In any case the cost of dram and storage will eventually go down as it has over the past 40 years. So will the cost of compute as we build better accelerators. So for a console of a lifetime of 8 years they really have two options, 1.) delay the PS6 and still release the same hardware, or 2.) release the PS6 on time in either 2027 or 2028 at a higher price but lower volume production until the memory and compute hoarding slows down. I think they are going to do the latter. I agree with you that prices may go higher, but thats only going to be temporary because its a supply constraint. We're simply in the largest memory upcycle of all time driven by AI demand and compute memory hoarding. The AI demand isnt going anywhere but the compute memory hoarding cant last.I have no idea... but its a commodity, so if you remove whatever is making the price high, then the prices should come down. But we have no idea how long that will take, or even worse... if the price wouldn't go up even more.
What any company with half a brain would do, is make their plans based on the absolute worst-case scenario, which isn't just that prices may stay the same, but that they could even go up. And its thinking like that that probably led Sony to make a handheld and home console.
Mind you, when Sony made that choice, they were only tasked with the realization that node shinks no longer translates to cheaper consoles, and that necessitated them having to have two consoles with drastically different APU sizes so they can have a "cheaper" option. And then the RAM crisis happened... which just further validates that kinda thinking to begin with.
It isn't just Trump you cretin.
You think that the Dems would have acted any differently to the AI gold-rush ?
It will never have the install base to sustain it.Yes, you can. Unless you believe that PS6 will never have the install base to sustain it. And no Sony game ever needed more than 5M units to break even.
So you at least expect both combined to land at over 100M? I don't see how that isn't quite the install base.It will never have the install base to sustain it.
Imo, PS6 alone won't have half the PS5 sales. 749-899$ is too high.
PS6 Switch is the mainstream one and that's below PS5 | PS5 Pro in Raster considerably.
Never said Sony is making a handheld because they predicted an increase in component prices. Said that they would have noticed that rode shrinks do not translate to price reductions anymore.Sony has been working on the handheld much earlier than before the AI boom happened. It was because of the need to enter the growing mobile gaming market, not because they predicted an increase in component prices. The exorbitant increase in console prices is driven by lack of manufacturing capacity from the logic and memory fabs not because of the slow progression in moving to newer nodes. So its a supply constraint not some technological change as you suggest. In any case the cost of dram and storage will eventually go down as it has over the past 40 years. So will the cost of compute as we build better accelerators. So for a console of a lifetime of 8 years they really have two options, 1.) delay the PS6 and still release the same hardware, or 2.) release the PS6 on time in either 2027 or 2028 at a higher price but lower volume production until the memory and compute hoarding slows down. I think they are going to do the latter. I agree with you that prices may go higher, but thats only going to be temporary because its a supply constraint. We're simply in the largest memory upcycle of all time driven by AI demand and compute memory hoarding. The AI demand isnt going anywhere but the compute memory hoarding cant last.
Eventually, yea. But that's deep into Gen 10. longer than it took with PS5. A consequence of console prices rising is that people will start upgrading their consoles less frequently. PS5 Pro 899$ owners aren't about to ditch it.So you at least expect both combined to land at over 100M? I don't see how that isn't quite the install base
But as the fabrication uses lower lithography doesn't the density(GBs) per kg increase? And now we are at the critical slowdown in Moore's law you'd expect to pay disproportionately more for the smaller density gains of a lithography change as progress slows - and demand of that lowest tier to be more supply constrained - so isn't that trend in line with normal lifecycle pricing per kg?New Data from Korean customs. The memory price correction is accelerating. Rather than slowing down.
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No, but end 27 is not rushing, it's the usual 7 year gap.I agree it is a great system. It is my main, but I don't think it got it's killer exclusive yet(aside from Astrobot). Do you think they should rush ps6 to the market?
If you could say Stellar Blade, Gran Turismo 7, Demons Souls, Ghost of Yotei, Spiderman 2, Death Stranding 2, Saros, Astrobot, Helldivers 2, Returnal, GOW Ragnarok, Ratchet and Clank Rift, Horizon Forbidden West, Rise of Ronin, Sackboy, Wolverine, Marathon, MLBA were PS5 only, it would be an amazing roster of exclusive games.
But Sony did cut costs on the PS5 by moving to a newer process they moved from 7nm to iirc 6nm on the PS5 base, you can read about it here. I think Xbox's argument which Sony was well aware of was that cutting costs through newer process nodes was going to become less viable. But it doesnt entirely rule it out holding other factors constant. Its really down to other factors driven by AI boom, compute and memory hoarding and fabs not moving fast enough to ramp up production. I think the AI demand is going to increase but once the new fabs start coming online and Chinese memory and storage manufacturers start competing on the global stage then you'll see a serious drop in prices.Never said Sony is making a handheld because they predicted an increase in component prices. Said that they would have noticed that rode shrinks do not translate to price reductions anymore.
If faced with that problem, it would become clear that any well (appropriately) specced console you make will cost a lot, which would have been clear to them with the PS5pro. And that realization would contribute to them feeling a lower-powered device is necessary, and that would be a good contribution as to why they should have a handheld. Cause they could also just make a lower power non-handheld PS6, but if you can make that be a handheld, then that would be even better.
And I agree they are going with option 2... but what I have been trying to say is that the fact they are releasing the handheld too would mean the handheld will always be the lower costing higher volume version, and the home console would be the higher costing lower volume model for pretty much the life of the PS6.
This is because of the move to longer term memory for AI systems and higher memory requirements for inference. But its down to supply really, I'm really hoping CXMT can do a deepseek moment and mass produce DDR5 memory, but dont know how realistic that is.New Data from Korean customs. The memory price correction is accelerating. Rather than slowing down.
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The April-to-May jump is purely price hikes the AI side. The memory market is now bimodal.But as the fabrication uses lower lithography doesn't the density(GBs) per kg increase
Yes, you can. Unless you believe that PS6 will never have the install base to sustain it. And no Sony game ever needed more than 5M units to break even.
Eventually, yea. But that's deep into Gen 10. longer than it took with PS5. A consequence of console prices rising is that people will start upgrading their consoles less frequently. PS5 Pro 899$ owners aren't about to ditch it.
But above all, PS6 Switch (the actual mainstream console) dev kit is PS5 Low Power Mode. So PS5 | PS5 Pro support for the entirety of Gen 10 is near guaranteed.
Sony is already massaging around a family of devices, etc.
New Data from Korean customs. The memory price correction is accelerating. Rather than slowing down.
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The April-to-May jump is purely price hikes the AI side. The memory market is now bimodal.
Hyperscalers are offering to co-fund CAPEX, signing WSAs with SEC LSI and offering to buy EUV machines outright. Their stance: we will buy any quantity of memory at any price.
Meanwhile, consumer hikes are deliberately suppressed. To avoid bankrupting customers, the supplier cartel is offering lower prices in exchange for massive allocation cuts. Because they now control 90% of the supply, they can effortlessly shift capacity into the AI blackhole to hold consumer prices around $8-12/GB. Not too high that demand starts being destroyed but high enough that memory is firmly cemented as a premium product that commands premium margins.
China cannot save us; their memory deficit is worse than ours due to their own astronomical AI demand. And their DUV Memory industry is far less productive than ours.
Only Apple secured meaningful allocation by immediately folding on price to haggle quantity. Everyone else took cuts: Nvidia GeForce lost 15 to 20% of its GDDR, Radeon production is approaching zero, and Sony secured only a "minimum quantity" for the PS5. The resulting hardware price hikes are as much about passing on costs to consumers as they are about reducing demand to avoid shortages.
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE MEMORY PRICES AND AVAILABILITY WILL EVER RETURN TO 2024 LEVELS. NOT IN 2027, 2028 OR EVEN 2035. NOSTALGIA IS NOT A STRATEGY.
The initial PS6 design logic was simple. Because Sony sourced PS5 Pro memory at a cheap $2.9/GB, the PS6 was configured as a hardware value machine based on 2024 pricing. It prioritized a massive quantity of memory that was more than offset by massive cuts to power, cooling, and assembly.
But the party is over. Expensive memory has wiped out those savings, pushing the design overwhelmingly into the red as every layer of the BoM gets hit with price hikes.
Consequently, the PS6 is now a pro console. Sony must accept larger allocation cuts to secure lower memory prices, but they cannot pass those savings on without shorting supply against demand. Lowering the PS6 to 15-20GB just makes it a PS5 Pro Max and breaks games already in development.
On the backdrop of all of this, Sony will not just sit there with their mouths open. They will pull a Nintendo and prioritize software. Generations will overlap, shifting emphasis to the broader "PlayStation" ecosystem rather than just the PS6.
On a positive note, scarcity forces a survival of the fittest. It slaughters products offering poor value per BoM. Wasteful hardware and software must get better or die; A game with prohibitive hardware requirements (doesn't ship on PS5, doesn't work on 8GB PC, etc) will simply flop.
Stop arguing that specific commodity thresholds are required for gaming. What one wants and what one gets are different things. Redirect that focus to developers: does this game truly need that much VRAM? Why are you shipping uncompressed textures and audio?
For multiplat games that need to support Switch, Steam machine or mid-low end PCs and other handhelds etc., sure.But above all, PS6 Switch (the actual mainstream console) dev kit is PS5 Low Power Mode. So PS5 | PS5 Pro support for the entirety of Gen 10 is near guaranteed.
Cut the RAM down to 20GB. The APU is already conservative enough.I can't see any future reality where the PS6 Switch sells more than the true PS6 console. There just can't be ANY reality that has Sony viewing the PS6 Switch handheld as the "TRUE" mainstream device, whereas the PS6 home console is treated like a PRO console at launch. That CAN NOT happen! If it does......it'll be the beginning of the end for PlayStation.
handheld pcs are still incredibly niche and no one wants to stream gamesThe next generation is handheld PCs and streaming boxes.
#team2027New Data from Korean customs. The memory price correction is accelerating. Rather than slowing down.
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One giant shadow drop and viral marketing event away. Streaming is the only hope we have for a graphical next gen in the next decade.handheld pcs are still incredibly niche and no one wants to stream games
www.sandstoneinsightsjapan.com
Guess we have no chance then. Streaming games already sucks for current fidelity, you're dreaming if you want it to be the thing that supports "graphical next gen".One giant shadow drop and viral marketing event away. Streaming is the only hope we have for a graphical next gen in the next decade.
I don't want it to be that way. Multiplatform games are stuck targeting Switch 2 and PS6P for the next decade. The only chance we have at a big production going after an exciting tech target is if someone takes their shot at streaming.Guess we have no chance then. Streaming games already sucks for current fidelity, you're dreaming if you want it to be the thing that supports "graphical next gen".
Games scale easily. You can easily make a graphical showcase on PC while tuning it to run on less powerful specs. It hasn't been a problem and the whole "cross gen holding the PS5 back" never held any actual weight.I don't want it to be that way. Multiplatform games are stuck targeting Switch 2 and PS6P for the next decade. The only chance we have at a big production going after an exciting tech target is if someone takes their shot at streaming.
#team2027
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Firstly, switch 2 and PS6P should not be compared as they are a generation apart in hardware architecture and feature support. Secondly, was path traced RE Requiem held back by Switch 2? This concern is way overblown in the current era of engine scalability.I don't want it to be that way. Multiplatform games are stuck targeting Switch 2 and PS6P for the next decade. The only chance we have at a big production going after an exciting tech target is if someone takes their shot at streaming.
If PS6 releases next year, publishers will want multiplatform games to release on both systems. And with PS6P coming down the pipe, why wouldn't they. If anything the tech target for next gen is lower today than it was 3 years ago for the current gen.Firstly, switch 2 and PS6P should not be compared as they are a generation apart in hardware architecture and feature support. Secondly, was path traced RE Requiem held back by Switch 2? This concern is way overblown in the current era of engine scalability.
Games scale easily. You can easily make a graphical showcase on PC while tuning it to run on less powerful specs. It hasn't been a problem and the whole "cross gen holding the PS5 back" never held any actual weight.
If anything the tech target for next gen is lower today than it was 3 years ago for the current gen.
Several analysts also predicted wrong launch timings for PS5. This means nothing.This came out a few months ago, it's good to bring it up again now:
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Sony Group (6758)-ゲーム部門の好調が第3四半期を牽引、今後さらなる上昇余地あり
Sony Group (6758)-ゲーム部門の好調が第3四半期を牽引、今後さらなる上昇余地ありwww.sandstoneinsightsjapan.com
Key Points:-
- The gaming sector also performed well in the third quarter: Sony's third-quarter results are expected to exceed market expectations. Sales of in-house developed titles and third-party games are driving the drive.
- Sensor demand remains strong: Demand for sensors for smartphones continued to be strong in the third quarter. The weak yen supports sales and profits.
- Music growth slows, TV improves: The strong performance of the music sector in the second quarter is not replicated in the third quarter. The performance of the TV and electronics division is expected to exceed expectations.
- PlayStation Lifecycle Extension: Sony sees the PS5's lifecycle extended. The release of PS6 is expected to be later than many expected.
For my tastes it's been more complex physics and AI models that are missing from the next gen experience. Give me a path traced game with the deformation capabilities of Crysis. CPU is the bottleneck for that. RE9 is still firmly in the PS3 gen when it comes to physics and interactivity.So if they make a game at 540p 60 fps with RTGI, PSSR to 1080p along with Ray Regeneration on PS6 handheld, you think that game is even feasible as-is at 60 fps on base PS5? Your "tech target" is fixated on raster performance, which is only relevant for backwards compatibility. The handheld will struggle on any intensive PS5 game that doesn't have a low power mode. But on next gen games designed with next gen features in mind, the handheld will handily outperform base consoles. And if devs start going further down the neural rendering path, they would hit hard ceilings even on the pro. Given the likelihood of pro being discontinued once PS6 is out, the base console and its huge install base could potentially hold back any advancement in tech. But even that is purely hypothetical as most game engines have become so robust at this stuff.
You didn't answer my question about RE Requiem. How did targeting the Switch affect the game's ambitions for the 5090? How was it "held back"?
Nope.It did. People like yourself just don't want to admit it.
So a Capcom developer had big ambitions for in-game physics and then they had to aim lower because of the Switch target? Let's not conflate lack of ambition or desire with technical capability. HL2, UC2, UC3 and 4 have more physics and destruction than most games to date. And those were PS3 and PS4 games. Until AC shadows came by, it was a slim pickings for that stuff in the AAA space. And GPU accelerated physics has been around for a while... The reason we aren't getting much physics is that devs don't even prioritize that in their engines regardless of target hardware. With GPU Work Graphs next gen, it's only a matter of time before entire physics libraries and collision detection are written with 0 reliance on the CPU. When that happens, that would be one more potential reason current gen will hold next gen back as RDNA2 can't do GWG. It's supported only RDNA 3 and up. But will devs bother? That won't be a technical issue as much as a creative one.For my tastes it's been more complex physics and AI models that are missing from the next gen experience. Give me a path traced game with the deformation capabilities of Crysis. CPU is the bottleneck for that. RE9 is still firmly in the PS3 gen when it comes to physics and interactivity.
I hope so at least because the 1-2 punch of S2 and PS6P makes the next decade of tech targets look a lot like the previous decade. Maybe even lower with a bigger emphasis on handhelds and wattage. My pipe dream is Sony using streaming as a way to set themselves apart from anything Xbox could dream of doing with local processing on a Helix. Sony would be wise to do a hybrid approach where a lot of the games are just "regular" PS6 games, but this is the one path they have at blowing the doors off the competition graphically without crushing their customer base. Naughty Dog making Uncharted 5 and only ever having to worry about it running on a 5090 or that general line of thinking. I think Sony are the only ones in a position with the motive and resources to do it too.So a Capcom developer had big ambitions for in-game physics and then they had to aim lower because of the Switch target? Let's not conflate lack of ambition or desire with technical capability. HL2, UC2, UC3 and 4 have more physics and destruction than most games to date. And those were PS3 and PS4 games. Until AC shadows came by, it was a slim pickings for that stuff in the AAA space. And GPU accelerated physics has been around for a while... The reason we aren't getting much physics is that devs don't even prioritize that in their engines regardless of target hardware. With GPU work graphs next gen, it's only a matter of time before entire physics libraries and collision detection are written with 0 reliance on the CPU. When that happens, that would be one more potential reason current gen will hold next gen back as RDNA2 can't do GWG. It's supported only RDNA 3 and up. But will devs bother? That won't be a technical question as much as a creative one.
I'd actually welcome that approach with it just playing PS5 games on BC and streaming PS6 games. But given all the hardware features, it would be a total waste of RT and AI silicon. The CPU is certainly the biggest concern, especially given the TDP. Hopefully halving the framerate is all it takes for most games to work. I wouldn't be surprised if 30 fps stops being the floor, for this reason. If all PS6 games run 48 fps or above for quality mode (with 30 fps cap just for TVs that don't support it), then scaling down to handheld should be easy. Half the framerate target to 24 fps and then adjust a few settings to recover 25% so it can hit 30 again.I hope so at least because the 1-2 punch of S2 and PS6P makes the next decade of tech targets look a lot like the previous decade. Maybe even lower with a bigger emphasis on handhelds and wattage. My pipe dream is Sony using streaming as a way to set themselves apart from anything Xbox could dream of doing with local processing on a Helix. Sony would be wise to do a hybrid approach where a lot of the games are just "regular" PS6 games, but this is the one path they have at blowing the doors off the competition graphically without crushing their customer base. Naughty Dog making Uncharted 5 and only ever having to worry about it running on a 5090 or that general line of thinking. I think Sony are the only ones in a position with the motive and resources to do it too.
Logic dictates it will. Memory hasn't become significantly more expensive to produce overnight, the reason pricing has shot through the roof is that it is supplied constrained. Fix that and prices come down. Despite what hyperscalers and AI evangelists would have you believe, AI is not going to scale into infinity.THERE IS NO GUARANTEE MEMORY PRICES AND AVAILABILITY WILL EVER RETURN TO 2024 LEVELS. NOT IN 2027, 2028 OR EVEN 2035. NOSTALGIA IS NOT A STRATEGY.