AMD Console Wins for 2017?

Xb1S has to count as a design win for who ever did the porting work.

 

I find it somewhat strange that Sony wouldn't opt for a more cost effective PS4 shrink / slimmer model (as far as we know), if the tech/SoC is available from AMD on doing so. I mean, Sony should be able to maximize greater margins (profit), from a slimmer PS4 model with a cheaper BOM.

Unless I'm missing some key information from the current PS4 tech/SoC that's preventing Sony from making such move... I find it awfully weird we haven't heard anything about a slimmer PS4 model.

 

Since Sony has its own IC design team, is it possible that Sony shrink PS4 APU by themselves?

 

Almost all slim revisions from Sony were announced around August and launched in September. There are credible rumors of a slim being announced very soon.

The recent information of XB1S being 16FF is making this even more probable, since it means AMD already did the shrink to finfet of the same CPU and GPU, and probably had this planned from the start. Could this even be part of the initial design contract with both Sony and MS?

It also takes care of an argument against mid-gen using jaguar, that AMD didn't make it for 16FF so maybe they'd have to use a different CPU. This here is jaguar on 16FF.

But... if they come out with Neo at 399, maybe the sales of original PS4 would drop so much, and shift so much toward Neo, that it's not worth the R&D to shrink PS4, because it couldn't be amortized?

 

x86 restrictions won't allow it. AMD can source manufacturers and sell x86 based processors but it can't provide any third parties a license to source the manufacturing themselves.

 

Nvm

 

Weren't the latest rumors suggesting that Sony will reveal both the slim Ps4 but the Neo as well? I can't believe they will be selling a slim model w/o a shrink.

 

http://en.yibada.com/articles/13691...n-neo-ps4-slim-will-last-upgrades-4-cycle.htm

My only doubt is whether the source have credibility. I can't find the original statement, as it was an investor meeting, not an investor press conference. It could be that PS4 slim is actually neo. Who knows.

It also looks like Sony is on a 3 years cycle, while MS is on a 4 years cycle? So that would make Sony and MS alternating being the most powerful console for a year or two. AMD will be getting a really nice stream of big contracts. Comparisons will become meaningless unless one of them pulls a Nintendo.

Then... in 2025 there will be a Sony and MS console launching the same year... it will be called the Great Fanboy War of 2025. The rogue cloud-based self-aware AI, which elected itself president of the United States in 2024, will panic and shutdown the internet, as an act of self-sacrifice to achieve transcendence.

 

What's the prospect of neo being in a smaller footprint than the current footprint?

The PS4 is three year old tech and isn't AMD claiming 2.8X performance per watt over the previous gens. I recall AMD showing a 480M at 16 CUs and rated at 35 watts benchmarking better than a 82 watt rated Bonaire with 14 CUs.

It's not like Sony has been aggressive with the ps4 pricing. And in terms of previous gens, even with $50-$100 gaps between skus and minimal differences in hardware and features, higher end skus sold at far better volumes. That should be a concern for Sony. MS has a year gap between Scorpio and Xbox Slim with expectation that Scorpio will come with a hefty price tag. For Sony to launch two products simultaneously there a chance of Neo cannibalizing the the sale of the Slim from the very start.

Is it possible for Sony to offer the Slim and Neo in the same product?

 

Sony might be able to make the Neo smaller but given the flop count, the neo will likely use just as much power as the ps4, trying to fit that in a case that is smaller than the ps4 will be tough.

 

Doubtful. The increase in FLOPs almost directly corrolates to the power savings AMD has claimed for going from 28 nm to 14/16 nm with Polaris. Basically it looks like the FLOPs count for Neo was determined by trying to keep the power consumption between PS4 and Neo roughly the same.

Regards,
SB

 

meh a lot of this applies to the camera tech used in psvr and Kinect and oculus and so on.

Anyway I would love a real AR experience. You can have the game overlaid in a giant tv window and you can move your head to the left to get a detailed map or to the right to see your inventory and so on. It can even be used with a tv so that the hud and other information is in the HoloLens and the game still displays on the tv.

However I don't think we will see it until the generation after scorpio. By then the hpu will have droped from 28nm to sub 7nm , the APU powering it will be sub 7NM and ram will be faster and use less power along with the rendering tech and lenses being cheaper.

 

and having made 10s of millions of ps4s already being able to reuse the same manufacturing of parts will make it cheaper than having a new design.

 

Corrected.

 

did they cancel the neo ?

 

That is a terrible article with no truth in it. Here is the Metro article which formed the basis of Yibada's fictional story: http://metro.co.uk/2016/06/30/plays...bile-style-yearly-upgrades-says-sony-5975963/

As you can see, the slim PS4 is just a added rumour from Damian Thong from Macquarie Securities that Metro included in the article.

Andrew House was talking at Sony's investor day held on 29th June. You can listen to it here if you like: http://www.irwebcasting.com/20160629/2/186d84d702/mov/main/index.html

I don't rule out a PS4 slim, but there hasn't been anything solid to show one is coming so far.

 

A slim doesn't even make that much sense if Neo is coming. Neo should be cheaper than the original ps4 to make , the apu should be smaller and the faster ram should be cheaper . I would think sony would want to dry up the well of the old ps4 as quickly as possible and transition to neo only by 2018

 

MS can surely start a price war if there is no PS4 slim. Traditionally consoles sell in their largest numbers at lower price points than the PS4 Neo can probably reach. Although lower prices haven't traditionally lead to a sales turn around for consoles with an image problem.

Having a clean break to a .5 gen console would make the incremental model far more assured as far as future support goes in the eyes of consumers, but is it really worth the risk of having no low priced alternative when your competition will have one? $200 consoles can rake in a lot of new customers.

 

While true to a point , the xbox one has had a $50 or more price advantage for awhile now and it hasn't really moved the needle . The ps4 continues to outsell it. The slim xbox one starts at $300 a $350 or $400 neo wouldn't be priced much differently than the current difference between the xbox one and ps4. Also the neo would offer a vastly better experience over the one compared to the advantage the ps4 had.

Its my understanding of the leaks that replacing the APU with Polaris would keep it roughly the same size as dropping the current chip to 14nm but allow them to gain the power and performance efficiency from Polaris

 

But not cheaper than a PS4 slim.