Sony: Q2 FY2018 Consolidated Financial Results

[iroboto]

Well yes, that's the question really. Are there going to be breakthroughs like that between 2019 -2021 ?
Tough to know really, you would expect Sony and Microsoft to know if such breakthroughs are going to happen in that time period.

I think poor planning can cause all sorts of issues
I wouldn't be in a rush right now to get out the door first with VR being in a fairly unknown spot and RT on the rise.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

There was an insider on resetera who basically implied 2019 was the target also, however more recently started saying 'plans change'.

Yup. And I believe that Sony now believe that launching PS5 without the ability to play PS4 titles at least as good as Pro goes, would be risky.

If you only give yourself a 2019 hardware spec, and for whatever reason it's not favourable to do it, then you're at a disadvantage when you launch in 2020 as you're spec was designed to launch a year earlier and new features could have entered a price bracket that would be feasible in 2020.

Yup, there are lot of spinning plates to keep moving and it's important to remember that consoles aren't in the same production sphere as pretty much any other product which are often updated yearly and/or exist in a higher budget and/or higher volumes.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo work in much lower production economies than say, for example, smartphones or TVs. Manufacturers want a lot of consoles produced prior to launch, then just enough to satisfy demand for the next X years but fabs and manufacturer's like Foxconn don't work around five-to-six year production cycles, it's a pain in the arse for them to accommodate dynamic volumes for what are considerably smaller volumes overall. Apple will sell more iPhones in six months than Sony will sell PlayStations in six years.

 

[iroboto]

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo work in much lower production economies than say, for example, smartphones or TVs. Manufacturers want a lot of consoles produced prior to launch, then just enough to satisfy demand for the next X years but fabs and manufacturer's like Foxconn don't work around five-to-six year production cycles, it's a pain in the arse for them to accommodate dynamic volumes for what are considerably smaller volumes overall. Apple will sell more iPhones in six months than Sony will sell PlayStations in six years.

And that's a point I normally don't consider as well.

This is where I find Sony considerably stronger than the other 2 when it comes to global supply chain management. Nintendo is constantly out of stock, they just cannot seem to get it right. Sony is able to determine their supply and demand amounts very well, always selling a fantastic volume month to month, suffering some shortages from time to time. MS has yet to sell out for more than a couple days this generation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

This is where I find Sony considerably stronger than the other 2 when it comes to global supply chain management. Nintendo is constantly out of stock, they just cannot seem to get it right.

Sony have been a hardware company in multiple product sectors for many decades so should have experienced every possible issue than can impact production and developed a strategy or contingency. Nintendo should have as well but we still see demand outstripping supply for product launches (except Wii U ) but it's weird that they seem fine with that.

Nintendo are nuts.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

So by launching later, you give your rival the chance to have 1+ year on the market ahead of you with a bigger next-gen library and when you release, your product doesn't look much better? What's the business sense in that? Launching later to make a notably better product that'll increase competitiveness makes sense, as does launching later to milk the current gen longer. Launching later to have a marginally better product that no-one will notice outside of DF articles doesn't, at least not to me.

Obviously nothing happens in a vacuum, if you have to respond to a competitor launching potentially 2 years earlier than you a few things come to mind.

• Does Sony believe the PS4/PS4-P is enough to hold off a newer Xbox? Or do they believe they will massively bleed users?
• Does Sony believe they'd have a significantly competitive advantage by launching with potentially far superior hardware in 2021 vs. 2019.
  • As a hypothetical example is the inflection point for powerful AND flexible RT hardware closer to 2021? And 2019 you're left with relatively performant but inflexible RT.

PS2 -> PS3 showed a lot of thing. Yes, you'll bleed users if your competitor has a year headstart. But even then Sony retained a core following that allowed them to basically match X360 sales for the generation despite the PS3 being on the market one year less.

And that was with a console that was never really able to distance itself from it's rival graphically. Additionally it had worse graphics at the start of the generation when developers were trying to come to terms with the wildly imbalanced PS3 hardware. Slow GPU, slow general purpose CPU core, incredibly fast SIMD SPU cores and incredibly fast RDRAM. I doubt a hypothetical PS5 launching later than a hypothetical XB-whatever will suffer in the same way.

So yes, ideally you'd want to launch in a similar timeframe to your competitor. But if performant AND flexible RT hardware is coming, it is mostly likely worth it to try to get that into your machine versus non-RT hardware, or fixed function RT hardware, even if you have to wait an extra year or two.

Unless...

You have rolling generations, in which case launch early then launch the next console with any significant improvements in hardware technology. You may not see big improvements from console to console, but at the very least you'll always be matching the capabilities of your competitor. And if they are on a traditional console cycle only, then every other console of yours will be better than theirs with better looking games.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Yes but will that be enough to make it look more next gen than 2019 tech? I don't think so.

Could be as simple as inclusion of SSD that enables fast accelerated streaming for all games versus slow loading with extensive loading screens for all games. To me that would be a big difference in the gaming experience.

 

[steveOrino]

Sony have been a hardware company in multiple product sectors for many decades so should have experienced every possible issue than can impact production and developed a strategy or contingency. Nintendo should have as well but we still see demand outstripping supply for product launches (except Wii U ) but it's weird that they seem fine with that.

Nintendo are nuts.

I always thought they were nuts from n64 on, but I have come to terms with the fact that Nintendo lives in their own bubble and they are obviously fine with that. They have no desire to go back to the days of industry dominance that the S/Nes and they have zero interest in pleasing 3rd parties. They just do their own thing and so far it keeps working for them.

Regarding RT hardware in consoles, I think its a pipe dream. Nvidia's solution lives on an island and I assume (if they have a solution in the works) AMD will have their own unique implementation, so RT will be a wild wild west for a while in the PC space. With he cost and die space premium, meaningful RT seems unlikely in anything console sized in the near future.

Besides, I am of the belief (and have a mountain of past evidence) that as long as the software looks tangibly better than the previous console then consumers will be happy with it. The general console consumer has historically prioritized system cost and software availability/quality above all else. Having the best hardware out the gate for the next generation will have a minimal impact on install base just like it always has.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

They have no desire to go back to the days of industry dominance that the S/Nes and they have zero interest in pleasing 3rd parties. They just do their own thing and so far it keeps working for them.

GameCube (22m) and Wii U (13m) definitely weren't working for Nintendo but they had a strong mobile platform to fall back on, which Switch's USP is currently cannibalising. Nintendo's CFO should know the profits in gaming aren't skimming hardware sales and a few first party games but in licensing others to sell on your platform. This relies on getting enough hardware to consumers so they can then buy games so the manufacturer can profit. I feel Nintendo don't get this.

I imagine last week was a very good week for Microsoft and Sony because RDR2 sold a ton of copies, which is revenue from licensing and for every copy sold digitally, ~30% retailer cut on top.