Many good answers
My (not so) quick take on this topic:
Last round, AMD was the obvious choice. intel was not remotely close and Nvidia was not interested by this low margin bizness.
Apparently, Sony is doing a mid-gen refresh with a more custom AMD SoC, using a Sony ML block for "DLSS like" solution and RT taken from RDNA4. At quick glance, it looks like an unbalanced APU with the outdated Zen2 CPU that will crumble under RT loads. But I may be well wrong. Anyway, it won't move the needle too much as RDNA4 + Zen2 will be perceived as a low-end combo when put in front of the PCs from the same time frame with Blackwell GPUs and Zen5 CPUs.
MS is clearly the looser of this gen and it seems they are going directly to a next gen solution. In the meantime, they are leveraging new software tricks to boost the performance and extend the life of their console.
But what everybody want to know is what's coming next.
Intel is in better position this round with Celestial, matured drivers and flexibility on the fab side (in-house and/or TSMC). If they are willing to sacrifice margins, they can be a serious contender. They can even offer the CPU only and pair it with AMD/NV GPU in a chiplet. Anything is possible with intel. I call them the dark horse.
AMD is the natural choice. They are cheap, accommodating, a long history of successful cooperation but let be honest, MS/Sony won't get anything "avantguarde" from AMD. it's been too long that they are followers, not innovators in the eyes of the end-user. Yes they are perceived as the "chiplets king" but it doesn't translate into anything gamer cares about. I call them the safe "grandpa" choice.
Then you have Nvidia. They just setup a new semi custom division and one of the main goal is grab these console deals. Obviously, green team strong point is the best GPU tech and gaming ecosystem. RT, DLSS, FG, AI (NIM, NPC, ML), name it, they have it all. Paired with a efficient ARM Cortex X5 or (why not) a Neoverse V3, Nvidia is able to offer a very compelling SoC. Cons are price and... price (but I got some news on that front later). Note that backward compatibility is not a major problem these days, especially with Zen2 level of performance that a emulator like Prism can easily take care of (Remark: contrary to what many people say, MS and Nvidia have currently an excellent relationship. MS buys billions of dollars of Nvidia products every quarter). I call this solution the "uprising"
Finally, Qualcomm can also enter the bid but their GPU is few class below and they are not know to be aggressive in price. So I don't know if they stand a chance in this fight
So what's my prediction?
Well, I got some important information that may change the course of this battle. The big news is that Nvidia is willing to be aggressive in price and abandon their standard 70%+ margins for consoles. The reason is simple. They make so much money with AI (and they expect to be like that for the next 3~4 years) that these console deals won't move a needle on their balance sheet. And when you look at the numbers, its true. Nvidia will do ~$120 billion revenue in 2024. AMD total gaming division revenue (GPU + console) for 2023 was $6.2B with 50% gross margin (and I guess low 30% for the consoles). Let's say half came from consoles, which is ~3% of Nvidia expected revenue for 2024 and it would represent a negative impact on their gross margin lower than 1%!!! Nvidia can definitely afford that.
But will it be enough? MS and Sony don't take risk. Like every big cooperation, they want predictable outcome. With AMD, they are in a safe zone. Another point to consider is that going with Nvidia will kill AMD Radeon division. I mean totally. Imagine Nvidia on Xbox, Playstation, and Switch plus 80% market share on PC... RIP Radeon. And MS / Sony know the consequence of this choice. They definitely don't want to depend on a single vendor in the future. That's the biggest counterpoint to a Nvidia solution and that's why I believe only one console may go with Nvidia even if they offer a better overall solution.
In any case, everything can happen. This time, the choice will be much more difficult than last gen. Interesting times ahead...
