Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2020]

What don't you see? Last gen was 400 and Sony want to have a fast transition. Releasing a cheapest model at 500 (in the current climate) will not sell well.

Surely logic dictates a higher price means slower sales?

 

If economics was that simple you couldn't get 8 different contradictory opinions on literally every policy. Sony released at $399 in 2008 and that was a big win for them versus the $499 XB1, there is nothing that suggests being $499 vs $599 in 2020 means the audience will suddenly declare "Fie upon both your houses" and goes home.

 

Except we know there will be an XSS which will likely be 300 (or even less?)...oh, and the fact a load of people have lost their jobs and there's a load of uncertainty in the world, but yeah...feel free to release expensive products and produce a shit-load of them...great business brain stuff IMSO.

 

And 2013 was a boomtime economy? It is always going to be easier to sell faster with a lower price point but neither company chose to launch in 2013 with a loss leader product so I don't see either of them choosing to do so now. Instead both Sony and MS worked towards a target BoM that would allow them to hit $399/$499(w/Kinect), now we have nothing but solid months of messaging emphasising power and other high value messages. I think both looked at each other and thought that price point was not going to be the key purchasing factor instead they both decided that they needed to win that performance crown, years of Banderas.GIF presumably worked to convince them that was going to be the key to "winning" this gen and all sources for BoM we have point to one north of $450.

Subsidising hardware hasn't been a thing since PS3 and I think the accountants at Sony are not about to authorise that much red ink again, ditto MS.

I do agree Lockhart is a fascinating box but we don't even know what MS messaging is for that, it's going to be more powerful than XB1 so it's not the thin client streaming device I thought it might be but presumably it's not as powerful as PS5. I think the delay on pricing for MS is driven entirely by wanting to bracket the PS5 price point with clear space either side.

 

The longer sony stay quiet the less time MS have to announce lockhart and do their "lockhart cheapest next gen console" marketing.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...l-architecture-day-tiger-lake-xe-gaming-focus

I don't know for me Intel became the Boy Who Cried Wolf a long time ago with regard to GPUs, I spent years going to presentations where they would show context free numbers over screenshots of years old titles like "40% more performance" or over screenshots of incredible gains in 3DMark06 in 2012

 

Sony were broke in 2013, they had just clawed their way back from the edge of disater...now they are in a very nice position, all thanks to the PS4. This time MS has the better hardware and the pockets to undercut (why even bother with lockheart otherwise) and Sony want to keep all that money rolling in.

You can't compare 2013 to 2020 for many reasons...but, as an example, if I wanted a product - really wanted it - like a rare collectable, I would pay whatever the cost is (within reason obviously) to get it. It's a risk, another cheaper one may pop up or it might never be listed ever again. This is a similar scenario, I appreciate Sony don't want to lose money - but sometimes you've got to take a hit to get the long term gain. They are making loads from PS4 and they want to hold onto that market share.

And likewise using PS3 as an example, they were losing, what? 300 on that per unit!? No-ones talking silly money here - they will have a model on what people spend and therefore be able to project potential profits from software/PS+ etc to offset the launch costs...this is why people are saying the digital edition may be as much as 100 cheaper - because they make so much more from digital purchases - it may wash it's face after a few games and then it's all gravey vs the disk buyers of this world.

 

I think once people see the Xbox One version of Infinite they will stop saying that the version they showed doesn't look "next gen".

 

There was nothing that looked next gen from the Halo footage. We have open world games this gen that look better.

 

You could definitely persuade the bean counters it makes more sense than it did in 2013 but ultimately we are circling the same points I'm sure are being debated in Sony & MS right now, subsidise or not? After all even if you manage to slice it to $199 given the mass layoffs and economic depression thanks to Covid you could take a bath on subsidy cost and then still see nothing on the attachment side to compensate. The thing with subsidies is you never get to take them back, you could go hard and stuff $100 in every box but if the overall market has slowed to where you don't see a return you don't get to stop doing that. I hope I haven't given a mistaken impression I am hot to pay $499, I would love to be wrong and see Sony and MS drown the world in red ink but I'm just not seeing any signs either of the two companies is interested in that given their current messaging is very much on the "look at the luxurious walnut inlay and fine alcantera leather" end of the scale

 

none that run 60fps though.
There is a limited time budget here, very limited. The game would have been better served at 30fps for campaign and 60fps for MP if they wanted to wow audiences, but I largely suspect 30fps gaming is very poor performer on Xcloud compared to 60fps titles.

 

Maybe not, but they look better!

 

indeed. But playability is the largest factor here for cloud gaming.
missing inputs in 30fps titles is fairly rough experience.

dare I say further that the 'simple' geometry landscape and funky lighting also lends well to mobile gaming. Bet it would be very hard for someone playing on an android phone to notice all the flaws lol.

 

Yeah I agree. Especially in MS case with their one platform many devices strategy. I look at the new Xboxes as an additional no nonsense hardware option for those looking for a traditional console experience rather than a direct win at any cost platform competitor to the likes of Sony or Nintendo. Each company seems do be doing their own thing that matches their respective strengths.

 

That $450 probably doesn't include packaging, distribution (possibly including air freight) and storage for what's probably going to be a pretty large and heavy device. Also won't include any kind of retailer margin.

Given that Sony will maybe want to show shareholders some kind of profit from the huge revenue generated by the console sales, and that pricing may want offer some wiggle room in case of exchange rate fluctuation (America is a turbulent place right now), and that Sony are currently utterly dominant, I could see them pushing for $549 or even $599 at launch.

They can always drop the price after the first ten or twenty million have sold. Demand is going to outstrip supply this Christmas, even at $600 I reckon.

I think so too. And this explains the XSS. I'm starting to think $299 minimum for the XSS. Maybe even $399 if it has an optical drive and controller, and XSX/PS5 are going for something like $599.

If XSS is a fully fledged alternative it really needs optical. Especially given how big a selling point back compat is.

Plus, co-op! Some pretty crazy stuff can go off in Halo, and two players can stress the game with more crazy stuff than just one. If Halo Infinite can pull off 60 fps on X1, or even just X1X (like Gears 5), I'll be suitably impressed.

 

Yeah man, sorry. I was just trying to counter that claim to say there are a lot of great game makers out there not linked to a hardware brand (unlike the awesome Guerrilla, who are), and that every game is trying to do something different.

Different games make different choices, and that can impose radically different requirements on a game from day one of the development process.

 

Rockstar begs to differ, and so do many others. Ofcourse there will be 'true next gen' graphical games on Xbox and PC (and PS5) from 3rd party devs. I thought Eternal was truly impressive and that at 60fps. UE5 will be used by 3rd party devs too.... and MS 1st party.
Whatever platform (PS5/PC/xbox), next gen graphics will be enjoyed, sooner or later.

 

Yeah, it's a difficult time. There are a lot of cross gen games, and even if a particular games isn't, game technology is always kind of ... transitional. Rebuilding systems takes a lot of time and a lot of skill. Sometimes lessons need to be learned and then folded back into the core of an engine's next iteration, which can take years.

It's really interesting that the way games hardware works is becoming more homogenised (more or less), but the engineering efforts needed to leverage it are growing all the time. We've gone from pure software, to hardware sprites, to pure software, to fixed function hardware, to pixel and vertex shaders, to a mix of shaders and compute. And the capabilities are being added to all the time.

Perhaps, at some level, the conceptual shift this gen is one of the smallest ever. But the effort needed to find out how to use the hardware best is greater than ever. Machine learning for example, which is based on relatively simple operations at a hardware level but carried out on a massive scale by the software. Goodness me, I can't get my head around it!

 

It's only a difficult time if you expected that all developers would offer massive amounts of true next generation games (at launch). That has never happened to any console though. The most successfull console ever, the PS2, started to shine about two years in. Even we PS gamers only get a few 'true next gen' games, and thats over the course of one to two years.

Yes, it's the smallest jump in graphics so far, that doesn't mean graphics can't be truly amazing anyways. There's a reason tech companies like NV pushed RT, DLSS, mesh shading etc.