Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

But targetting more CUs and more ROPs means you need more bandwidth, which means you need GDDR5. Pretty sure they the reason they went with DDR3 was because it was the much safer bet to get to 8 GB, and that meant ESRAM, which limited what they could fit for GPU and CPU. It's not like you pick your memory at the last minute. They would have picked DDR3 and ESRAM as their design a couple years ago. Projecting the price and availability of GDDR5 in that time frame is most likely why they picked DDR3. In hindsight you could say it was the wrong choice, but they had to choose years ago. If their projections were 8 GB of DDR3 + ESRAM or 4 GB of GDDR5, then I can see how they ended up where they are now.

Says a lot about their management if that was their prediction ...
 
Says a lot about their management if that was their prediction ...
Bear in mind that DDR3 is a commodity RAM. GDDR5 is not - there are only 3 players building it and thus far the production volumes are just enough to satisfy the high end (~>$100) discrete GPU market; also note that very few GPU's are currently using the densities Sony require.
 
Why? It was already mentioned that TWC no XB1 wasn't exclusive, and XB1 is just another client for the service.
Oh actually I missed that MSFT had a deal with them, my bad.
Though does that allows the xbox one to act as the set top box? Or it works on top of it?
 
Bear in mind that DDR3 is a commodity RAM. GDDR5 is not - there are only 3 players building it and thus far the production volumes are just enough to satisfy the high end (~>$100) discrete GPU market; also note that very few GPU's are currently using the densities Sony require.

This is probably true and all, but it would have more relevance if XB1 wasn't $100 more. That makes engineering choices look bad currently (yeah, I know about Kinect).

If the XB1 was 399 w/Kinect, or 349 without, or anything like that, there would be something to show for the cheap DDR3. Not to say it cant be an advantage later on, or that maybe MS margins aren't higher on XB1, but we work with what we can see.
 
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This is probably true and all, but it would have more relevance if XB1 wasn't $100 more. That makes engineering choices look bad currently (yeah, I know about Kinect).

Cost != price.

Microsoft launching XB1 at $499 just implies they expect to be supply limited during the holiday season.

I'd expect a price cut early 2014.

Cheers
 
Cost != price.

Microsoft launching XB1 at $499 just implies they expect to be supply limited during the holiday season.

I'd expect a price cut early 2014.

Cheers

I'm very aware of that. In fact I mentioned that I was aware of it in the part you're replying too :D

As I said, we can only go on what we see to some extent. Which is 499.
 
Cost != price.

Microsoft launching XB1 at $499 just implies they expect to be supply limited during the holiday season.

I'd expect a price cut early 2014.

Cheers

But they are killing themselves with that logic. Yes they can get a premium of 499 form the diehards... then turn around and drop the price? thats dumb.

Better that they have a firesale at 399 and sell out and keep goodwill intact.
 
But they are killing themselves with that logic. Yes they can get a premium of 499 form the diehards... then turn around and drop the price? thats dumb.

Better that they have a firesale at 399 and sell out and keep goodwill intact.

They might just drop the price to $399 when the math/numbers say so. I am 100% sure they are crunching the pre-order numbers. And they will have the numbers under a microscope from now to probably 5-6 years after launch.

It might drop 2014, 2015, sooner, later. But if the math says they should they will. I bet they have pretty sophisticated models. I bet they keep updating the scenarios as new data shows up.

If they see hard data that says they are killing themselves they will act.
 
But they are killing themselves with that logic. Yes they can get a premium of 499 form the diehards... then turn around and drop the price? thats dumb.

Better that they have a firesale at 399 and sell out and keep goodwill intact.

Well if X1 remains at the shelves getting dust, Ms will look back at the infamous Xbox discount (at least in europe)

"All this has happened before. All this will happen again"

Anyway, i think this part fits better on the business post ;)
 
I would assume that it would be some kind of way to access on demand content for which the content networks has allowed streaming.

So there will probably be an app, which will let you view some content but not all. You can be a TWC customer and view some content through the TWC app. and then for HBO or ESPN content, you would go to the HBO Go app or the Watch ESPN app.

It could get ridiculous if you have to use a dozen different apps. though. But in the end, you're still subscribing to a cable TV package. For a truly disruptive model, Apple would buy content directly from the channels and bypass the cable TV operators, let you buy just the programs you want.

Europeans may not appreciate this but Americans are being gouged to watch TV, paying hundreds for cable TV with DVR service (typically $15-20 a month now) and "high-speed" Internet service which lags behind most industrialized countries in the OECD surveys.

So there are all kinds of opportunity to shake up things in TV and MS wasn't able to do it any more than Apple or Google.
 
Europeans may not appreciate this but Americans are being gouged to watch TV, paying hundreds for cable TV with DVR service (typically $15-20 a month now) and "high-speed" Internet service which lags behind most industrialized countries in the OECD surveys.

Discussion calling into focus this myth of Internet Connection Quality between US and Europe has been spawned off to here: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=63990
 
Is there official info of the console's expect date to be shipped? If it lands on December then September or October should be final silicon. If it's November then next month should be final silicon and the end of any speculation.

Also does anyone have information on the target number of units to be shipped? because fewer units = longer development time, and more means shorter time for testing and yadayada.

was wondering if any could shed some light on these two topics because that is essential information on the schedule they're working on, and when final silicon is expected.
 
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At the latest it will ship just before thanksgiving in the US which is the end of November.
I would imagine that bulk manufacturing of retail components has to start very soon, probably either this month or next.
 
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