Bloomberg on PS5 yields, orders, and price ranges [2020-09-14]

[Deleted member 13524]

In April Sony only targeted 5~6 million PS5 by the end of 2021.

Then we hear Sony plans to raise the quantity to 15 million, but Sony can only produce 11 million.

Either that or Sony never changed their plans and Bloomberg was wrong at least 2 out of the 3 times they talked about PS5 production numbers.

I don't think Takashi Mochizuki, Bloomberg's contact in Japan for everything tech / console related, is ill intended, but like many others he may be being fed false information, e.g. to purge leakers.
How many times did he report about a Switch 2 in 2020 and even in 2019?

I might have missed the post about that specifically? Who said he was lying?

You mean FUD posts in general?

https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155554/
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155498/
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155513/
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/2155536/

Plus what @iroboto mentioned.
Mine wasn't the first post complaining about the blatant FUD-spreading in this thread. Seems a bit unfair that my complaint was singled out with a "you can leave if you don't like it" response, but ok.
I got the message.

 

[AlNom]

Mine wasn't the first post complaining about the blatant FUD-spreading in this thread. Seems a bit unfair that my complaint was singled out with a "you can leave if you don't like it" response, but ok.
I got the message.

It was the first I came across (reading backwards). You're not that special to me. As noted, I missed a lot of the thread.

You can always refute things too if you feel you have a strong enough position. I'm not sure what complaints do other than add to the workload of reading through more insubstantial posts and going further off-topic as it is. The report button exists as well so we can more easily get to an issue instead of spending my time wading through 100s of posts to maybe see what it is you're complaining about.

Although, I feel you should be old enough to take a mature stance on how to filter things so you don't need me to explain how to post.

 

[iroboto]

Again, 360 was sold at a substantial loss plus millions of replacements due to faulty units, MS lost quite a lot money with the console during the first couple of years. The console was pretty cheap still. Price targets can say or cannot say anything about the manufacturing situation.

Yea I’m not saying these yields are reflective of the final price. They can choose whatever they want. But aiming for a price point and selling it at a price point are different things. I’m just saying MS appeared to have succeeded on landing where they want to land. With 360 they clearly did not.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

yea I think some others have mentioned this, but with respect to this article, Bloomberg Japan is citing that the SoC is the one having yield issues. The article cites a 50% yield on SoC.
That's pretty bad. That's like big bulky expensive Intel CPU chips bad, definitely not the type of yield I expect for a game console.

So if we do some napkin math so that people can ground some discussion of what things could be in terms of pricing/BOM etc.

IIRC another member here cited 11K for a 300mm 7nm wafer.
So area = pi * 150^2
XSX is 360mm^2 == 196 chips per wafer
PS5 is 300mm^2 == 235 chips per wafer
XSS is 197mm^2 == 358 chips per wafer

If you multiply out yields, and lets say a low yield is 80%
196 (XSX) * 0.8 = 157 chips or 70 USD per chip
235 (PS5) * 0.5 = 117 chips or 93 USD per chip
358(XSS) * 0.8 = 287 chips or 38 USD per chip

So it's not double the cost just because it's 50% yield. But we can see how XSS got to 299 and we have an idea now that PS5 could potentially hover around XSX pricing as a result of that BOM increase.

But final price to the customers is really just about, whatever they want to price it at.

Remember that about 25% of The chips on the waffer are wasted since they Will get incomplete (round waffer, squared chips).
That would put PS5 chips at 125 dolars each. It's too much.
Sony would have stopped production at that cost.

But the whole bloomberg report is a bit strange.
Nikkei reported that Sony increased production by 50% due to good yelds. The objective was to have 10 million consoles by the end of their fiscal year (March).
Now, somehow, Sony was at 15 million, reducing to 11 (4 million)?
When did Sony increased production again?

 

[3dilettante]

Yield figures don't include partially patterned regions at the margin of the wafer. They are based on the number of full candidate die on the wafer.

 

[Strange]

I went ahead and searched for the Journalist's articles as I heard from somewhere else that the journalist was fishy, look at what I found.

Takashi Mochizuki Yuki Furukawa Bookmark April 16 2020, 9:50 AM July 16 2020, 3:57 PM

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/tech...an-limited-playstation-5-output-in-first-year
Copyright © BloombergQuint

The company has told assembly partners it would make 5 to 6 million units of the PS5 in the fiscal year ending March 2021, according to other people involved in the machine’s supply chain. When Sony released the PlayStation 4 in November 2013, it sold 7.5 million units in its first two quarters.

Takashi Mochizuki Bookmark July 15 2020, 10:00 AM July 16 2020, 1:03 AM

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/busi...aystation-5-output-to-meet-virus-demand-surge
Copyright © BloombergQuint

(Bloomberg) -- Sony Corp. is roughly doubling its PlayStation 5 production to 10 million units this year as it sees the prolonged effects of the Covid-19 pandemic boosting demand for gaming, according to people familiar with its plans.

Went from 5 million to 6 milion April and then it is 5 million to 10 million in June. Suddenly now they're cutting from 15 million to 11 million in September.


Make up your mind?




Early reports of Xbox being ahead of PS5 in yields may be explained by the Series S being obviously easier to manufacture and inherently better yields (smaller die size). We didn't know for sure about the Series S and it was still just a rumor back then.

 

[mawver]

There are many points of attention in the design of Ps5

High clock!

Smartshift and power limit!

High customization
I / O (I imagine it is a point where AMD has no experience or tested models to help)

That said, I think this 50% figure is an extrapolation of the article based on the number of devices reduced from the target

-27% by the end of Q1 21

Otherwise if 50% is a direct estimate of the farm, it is very bad news

 

[Shortbread]

Went from 5 million to 6 milion April and then it is 5 million to 10 million in June. Suddenly now they're cutting from 15 million to 11 million in September.

Make up your mind?

WTH... lol

 

[3dilettante]

There are many points of attention in the design of Ps5

High clock!

Smartshift and power limit!

The clock may figure into parametric yields with regard to power consumption, although with the the size of the case and apparent emphasis on cooling, that may be partially compensated.
Smartshift isn't particularly new for AMD or important for yields.

High customization
I / O (I imagine it is a point where AMD has no experience or tested models to help)

There's not much on the main SOC that would be exotic for IO. The interfaces would include PCIe 4.0 with a 4x link and perhaps a few more. There could be some additional links for display or to another IO bridge if things like networking and display aren't integrated (Sony has had some weird integration choices in the past). The links would be something AMD has had on many of its chips, and the controller hardware on the SOC doesn't seem to be that special in terms of silicon.

The custom storage controller isn't on the main SOC.

A big consideration is that the SOC is a comparatively large and very new chip. It's not been in production very long, based on the rumors I've seen.

 

[London Geezer]

Sony denies it cut production by 4 mill.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1305939552230612993

Interesting!

 

[AlNom]

Sony denies it cut production by 4 mill.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1305939552230612993

Interesting!

Alright! Show's over.

Right?

 

[AzBat]

Took them long enough to deny it.

How did their stock do?

Tommy McClain

 

[AlNom]

On the one hand, they shouldn't be commenting on every rumour out there.

I'm just glad I don't have to force myself to read the whole thread now. :V

 

[mpg1]

They basically state that "the number has not changed since the start of mass production"

 

[London Geezer]

Alright! Show's over.

Right?

Did I ruin this beautifully spawned thread? It was a work of art.

 

[iceberg187]

Alright! Show's over.

Right?

What this now means is that their original number does not have deviation so assuming this is true, the increase of units reported over the summer is also not true. They isn't any wording on the yield issues, just the supposed reduction of units.

 

[AbsoluteBeginner]

On the one hand, they shouldn't be commenting on every rumour out there.

I'm just glad I don't have to force myself to read the whole thread now. :V

They probably had to, shares dropped after the news.

 

[AlNom]

Ah... that explains it.

hm.....

 

[mawver]

The clock may figure into parametric yields with regard to power consumption, although with the the size of the case and apparent emphasis on cooling, that may be partially compensated.
Smartshift isn't particularly new for AMD or important for yields.



There's not much on the main SOC that would be exotic for IO. The interfaces would include PCIe 4.0 with a 4x link and perhaps a few more. There could be some additional links for display or to another IO bridge if things like networking and display aren't integrated (Sony has had some weird integration choices in the past). The links would be something AMD has had on many of its chips, and the controller hardware on the SOC doesn't seem to be that special in terms of silicon.

The custom storage controller isn't on the main SOC.

A big consideration is that the SOC is a comparatively large and very new chip. It's not been in production very long, based on the rumors I've seen.

Smartshift power cap is not a problem alone, but in this set you can limit the options of adjustment


The complex I / O in SoC seems to me quite elaborate

How long would it take for a project like this to mature?

Alright! Show's over.

Right?

If you took the time to answer, you should talk about the real problem that is the lower yield

 

[mpg1]

Isn't AMD Smartshift a separate thing from what Sony is doing with dynamic clocking?