Xbox Series S [XBSS] (Lockhart) General Rumors and Speculation *spawn*

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From the other thread:

The rumours don't tally though. We're told LH is the same as XBSX but less GPU and less RAM. Okay, so that means it can't be a lot cheaper. But then we're told it's notably cheaper. Okay, if it's a lot cheaper, it must be reduced in quite a lot of areas. No no no, it's basically an XBSX just with 1/3 rd the GPU running 1080p, but also half the price.

This promise is just unrealistic. It can't be everything. It's either close to XBSX at which point it has a highish BOM and only a low price if MS subsidise it, or it's a fair bit different from XBSX with some extensive price reduction. How are you accounting for it being the same as XBSX and yet as cheap as $200??

Well, I was speaking in terms of performance-related hardware. In addition to a much smaller SoC and less RAM, you have cheaper cooling, power supply, case, half the SSD storage and no BluRay drive. Plus, the idea of subsidizing a digital-only console is a lot more attractive. Consumers can’t buy used games or borrow them from a friend, and you pretty much always end up using Microsoft’s retail giving them a much bigger cut. The current rumor for PS5 pricing is $100 less for the digital edition which points to the same kind of situation.
 
Which part? Rdna2?

Yeah. Wouldn't surprise me if neither of them have full RDNA2. We'll know soon enough.

I'm going with a 5 x 15 X 30 case. Ultra thin XSX! That's a 3rd of the XSX volume. That should give enough space for a single mb design.

Just imagine the Lockhart being behind the SeriesX & you can't see it until they move the Series X. :oops: Could be like Xbox 360 S reveal. :cool:

Tommy McClain
 
Okay, if it's a lot cheaper, it must be reduced in quite a lot of areas. No no no, it's basically an XBSX just with 1/3 rd the GPU running 1080p, but also half the price.

The CPU doesn't take much space in the SOC, maybe 50 of the 380 SOC for Series X? So cut the remaining 330 in half for 165 GPU, add the 50 CPU and you're at 215. Fairly close to the rumored 200 for LockHart.
 
The CPU doesn't take much space in the SOC, maybe 50 of the 380 SOC for Series X? So cut the remaining 330 in half for 165 GPU, add the 50 CPU and you're at 215. Fairly close to the rumored 200 for LockHart.
If XBSX is only $400, despite the largest silicon budget ever in a console, an elaborate construction and cooling, and a sizeable and fairly speedy SSD. Are we thinking LH is $200 and XBSX is $400?
 
If XBSX is only $400, despite the largest silicon budget ever in a console, an elaborate construction and cooling, and a sizeable and fairly speedy SSD. Are we thinking LH is $200 and XBSX is $400?

I think $200 would really be pushing it for Lockhart, assuming break even. The average for SoC, memory and SSD would need to sit below $60ish. That's some aggressive purchasing.
 
If XBSX is only $400, despite the largest silicon budget ever in a console, an elaborate construction and cooling, and a sizeable and fairly speedy SSD. Are we thinking LH is $200 and XBSX is $400?
I can't think of another instance where both a premium product and the loss leader were sold at a big loss.
This is assuming that $460-$520 BOM estimate is accurate, of course.
 
If XBSX is only $400, despite the largest silicon budget ever in a console, an elaborate construction and cooling, and a sizeable and fairly speedy SSD. Are we thinking LH is $200 and XBSX is $400?

My thinking is MS designed to go for as low as $400 due to PS4's success at that price. If they launch @ $400 then they won't need to launch Lockhart. I'm pretty sure that's why they have stayed quiet on Lockhart this whole time. But now with MS knowing what Sony has nows feels comfortable with launching XSX north of $400. That would allow Lockhart @ $250-$300 depending on how high XSX goes. Phil Spencer has said they were going to be "agile" on price. Only way Lockhart gets to $200 is if it's based on using All Access between $22.99 & $23.99/mo for 24 months.

Tommy McClain
 
Just because PS5 is less powerful that XSX doesn't mean it's gonna be cheaper to produce. Yields, cooling solution, SSD cost etc. will be different and will affect costs. My suspicion is that the PS5 will be more expensive to make and thus will cost more.

And I very much doubt that the diskless PS5 will be $100 cheaper than the regular model, that's just a fanboy dream.
 
Well, I was speaking in terms of performance-related hardware. In addition to a much smaller SoC and less RAM, you have cheaper cooling, power supply, case, half the SSD storage and no BluRay drive. Plus, the idea of subsidizing a digital-only console is a lot more attractive. Consumers can’t buy used games or borrow them from a friend, and you pretty much always end up using Microsoft’s retail giving them a much bigger cut. The current rumor for PS5 pricing is $100 less for the digital edition which points to the same kind of situation.

Sony didn’t want to have a drive at all, even on the PS4. Reality torpedo’d it last time, and the BC feature, as well as the lack of support for 4K BD, a popular option among early adopters would make them look bad. The actual cost savings on PS5 digital removing the drive is about $20 at manufacture, and that’s estimating high, and including the disc playback license.
 
I personally think Lockhart is a brilliant move for Microsoft if they can execute and message it well (prove it’s next-gen all the way, only 1080p). The benefits are numerous:

  • It gives them a the lowest price next-gen console by default, while still giving them the prestige of (sort of) the most powerful console.
  • It lets them sell next-gen to the casual gamer a year or two early, meaning they could potentially sell at lot more next-gen consoles than Sony in the first two years. In some ways this is similar to releasing their console a year ahead of the competition in terms of potential momentum building. All those One S sales they would have had in the next 2 years get added straight to their count of the next-gen base early in its life.
  • By skipping over the last-gen console sell-a-thon that usually happens over the next year or two (selling tons of your old console at $199 or $149) they can focus all their marketing energy toward next-gen.
  • This expansion of their next-gen user base makes their platform more attractive to developers to target in the first year or two.
  • It’s a real leg-up for GamePass because they will have a low cost entry point that doesn’t have any limitations in terms of what games it can play (no next-gen only games on the One S).
  • If it costs $200-250, it becomes a near impulse buy for Sony or Nintendo fans that want a cheap second console to dabble in GamePass and Halo.
  • The price can only go down from here, meaning buying into the XBox platform could get ridiculously cheap in 4-5 years.
This list doesn’t even include more speculative things like using the smaller SoC in other form factors like mobile devices, or giving it away with 2 year GamePass subscriptions. I think this will end up being really disruptive in a positive way. I just hope in practice it doesn’t hold any Series X games back, and that the mob doesn’t turn on MS for this, which can influence casual gamers.

There are no new generations for MS. Its best to think of these three consoles as phones. You have the affordable phone and the high end flagship phone . Then you will get a new high end phone and the old high end phone drops down in postion and the affordable phone because low end / end of lie and then a new high end comes out.

it will be the same for MS in the console world imo , it will just be a 3 year cycle for ms, You have LH , XSX both of those consoles drop in price most likely with a new micron process of 5nm which paves the way for a 5nm navi 3/4 with zen 4/5 to come in and sit at that high end. When the next one comes out LH will most likely EOL out of the market and XSX will now be the lowest end console at age 6.

With xcloud and the like it doesn't make sense for MS to keep the same hardware sitting there for a long time. Xcloud will keep getting refreshed because the more ML and the more instances each blade can run the more people they can serve , the more money they can make.
 
With xcloud and the like it doesn't make sense for MS to keep the same hardware sitting there for a long time. Xcloud will keep getting refreshed because the more ML and the more instances each blade can run the more people they can serve , the more money they can make.

Anyone have any insight into how often cloud server installations typically get refreshed?
 
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I can't think of another instance where both a premium product and the loss leader were sold at a big loss.
This is assuming that $460-$520 BOM estimate is accurate, of course.

If this product exists, it’s going to priced more like a Kindle or an Echo than a PlayStation. There’s very likely a lucrative subscription on the other end of each sale for Microsoft.
There are no new generations for MS. Its best to think of these three consoles as phones. You have the affordable phone and the high end flagship phone . Then you will get a new high end phone and the old high end phone drops down in postion and the affordable phone because low end / end of lie and then a new high end comes out.

it will be the same for MS in the console world imo , it will just be a 3 year cycle for ms, You have LH , XSX both of those consoles drop in price most likely with a new micron process of 5nm which paves the way for a 5nm navi 3/4 with zen 4/5 to come in and sit at that high end. When the next one comes out LH will most likely EOL out of the market and XSX will now be the lowest end console at age 6.

With xcloud and the like it doesn't make sense for MS to keep the same hardware sitting there for a long time. Xcloud will keep getting refreshed because the more ML and the more instances each blade can run the more people they can serve , the more money they can make.

I think you’re right long term, but it seems clear to me that Microsoft is drawing a very clear line right now that they want to be the start of that future. They have essentially codified a feature set and performance baseline across console and PC with DX12U, and they’re erasing XBox One from the lineup with Lockhart.

Because of how disproportionately slow the HDD and CPU were in the current gen (particularly obvious with One X), they need to start one last generation, one last all new platform, before they can start the forever-gen that you’re describing.
 
Anyone have any insight into how often do cloud server installations typically get refreshed?

That's hard to say, considering how new the field is, but there were major server upgrades when steps in CPU efficiencies happened, such as what happened in late 2015 to early 2016. That's how I got my Dual-CPU Intel Xeon E5-2670 CPUs for $90 a piece and 128 GB ram for dirt cheap and motherboard for equally cheap. Retail price at the time was still hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. Facebook upgraded to v2 or v3 CPUs because of the power reductions. Their servers flooded the market then.

Here's a thread from the file server forum: https://forums.unraid.net/topic/44374-90-xeon-e5-2670-26ghz-8cores-16threads/

For price comparisons at the time in 2016: these processors at $70 ($140-$150 for 2), or v3 processors at $1700 ($3400 for 2)
 
Anyone have any insight into how often cloud server installations typically get refreshed?

Amazon brings out updated server types every 2 years or so. You can still use the older ones back a couple of generations, so probably a 4-6 year life, with rolling updates every 2 years. The big cloud players are constantly adding capacity so it may be that older hardware makes up a small proportion.
 
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