Estimate a BOM delta for PS5 and XBSX

I dont think the SSDs are going to be massively different in price either, maybe $20-$30, which isnt much. There were alot of people saying that the XSX was going to be $100 more expensive due to the extra power, which in reality when you look into it you see in no world is there going to be $100 price difference. I expect their BOMs to be around the same, maybe one $20-$30 more, which really puts them at the same price point.
I also see alot of people claiming Sony can afford to discount the PS5 more than MS can, because the PlayStation makes more money than the Xbox does. They don't understand that MS literally has the same amount as Sony's entire profit for the last 20 years sitting in their cash reserves at the bank, nor that PlayStation is one of Sony's only money making divisions, and that profit is needed by Sony.
If anyone can afford to discount their console, it's MS.

 

Yes i agree with you, remains to be seen about the final prices and what each company is going to eat, but they will be rather similar all said and done in retail price.

 

For retail price I am expecting $399 - $449 for Xbox, $449 - $499 for PS5

 

It really depends on the numbers. If retail price is same and difference in BOM is 50$ for lifetime of product and there is 100 million units sold that translates to 5000 millions less made versus competitor. Those small numbers can become meaningful.

 

Right, but then you have more nuances with economies of scale and business writeoffs and justifications when at least one side is using the core hardware in their datacenters.

 

I don't know why the PS5 will cost more? Many things inside the Xbox Series X looks like premium. 100 dollars between the two consoles is nor true I expect at max the BOM difference to be 50 to 70 dollars above for on Xbox Series X. On Xbox side the APU and memory cost more there is some element looking like to be at a premium price like all the aluminium element inside the console.

After we need the teardown to be sure. I think it will be done by Gamernexus.

 

Sony is doing the flash controller, this is more R&D but they don't need to pay a third party for it. They needed a custom controller because the standard NVME controller only have two queue priority and is not optimized for read speed.

 

Is that NVME Controller something they could reuse in their Sony PC/Laptop lineups as an additional differentiators or is it a step too far? Or something they could license out to others?

 

exotic ssd, probably exotic cooling, fancy dualsense, it's possible ps5 costs more

 

The cooling vent is custom on XSX, it not means it cost more than a standard vent. the DS4 cost more than the Xbox One controller but it was a few dollars. I don't expect the controller to cost more than 3 maybe 4 dollars more than the DS4.

Cooling is custom for the two sides. And again Sony only paid the components to third party for the controller and I/O MS need to pay a third party to make it. More R&D but probably less BOM than paying a third party. The price of the two solutions out of NAND is probably nearly the same.

If Sony pays more it comes from the NAND Flash.

 

Sony quits PC market long ago.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/computers/vaio-laptops

 

Xbox One controller cost 15 dollars and Dualshock4 18 dollars. haptic feedback and the adaptative trigger will add some cost but I don't expect more than 3 to 5 dollars to the BOM.

 

In this link a few quotes are put on to the screen that allegedly come from someone who is working for a supplier for Sony:

The source suggested that the SSD controller for PS5 is a 12 controller part (confirmed ?) would actually easily exceed 5.5 GB/S. Therefore the source thought Sony might be using relatively cheaper Flash chips. How much cheaper that would make the SSD I don't know and of course the R\D plus chip real estate of the bespoke controller might just offset that but who knows.
added:
The haptic feedback and such must cost significantly more than the rumble in the PS4 controller. The retail might be kind of high so they might take that into account when pricing the system itself.

 

The NAND is cheaper for sure than the NAND used on PCIE4 PC SSD. For reaching 5 GB/s on a PC SSD PCIE4, there are only 8 channels. I doubt the haptic feedback or adaptative trigger will add more than a few dollars to DualSense price.

R&D is a fixed cost and not counting in the BOM.

EDIT: The Haptic feedback is like the HD Rumble of Switch Joycon.

 

not acording to wired article "It also boasts haptic feedback far more capable than the rumble motor console gamers are used to, with highly programmable voice-coil actuators located in the left and right grips of the controller."

 

Wouldn't the cost for Sony's fancy SSD controller be determined by the price of node it is fabricated on? Since they are not buying finished controllers from someone else?

DualSense is not going to be any more expensive to make than Dual Shock 4 which cost an estimated $18 to make. These accessories are high margin products. Nintendo Switch Pro controller cost $70 and lacks features like speaker, headphone jack, touch pad which the DS4 has and retail for $60.

The exotic cooling is just going to be another vapor chamber like everyone is moving towards. Unless they use their two sided cooling patent.

 

Yeah I expect something we've already saw in devkit

 

I want my dual counter-rotating blower design that I proposed for the last 10 years, and I say everybody is wrong for not doing exactly what I want.

It would costs $20 more on the BOM. Bring down my predicted difference to $55 and both would mostly break even or a small loss from retail chain profit margin at $449 and $499 respectively.

 

There's an overhead from the controller design, and we can sort of predict xbsx is using 800MT chips giving a 2.5GB peak (leading to 2.4 guaranteed) on the controller because the specs are public. Otherwise it would be 1033MT which is 3.3 peak from the phison specs.

For sony it's sort of confrmed to be using 12 chips from the 12ch specs and the presentation shows 12 chips, but we have no data about the custom controller other than the 5.5 figure, it's either 10% less overhead than the single-core phison using 533MT, or more margin using 667MT parts. The priority queues are making it impossible to compare "guaranteed" specs. Sony have potentially 3 time the iops and a better design for guaranteed performance from 6 independent priority queues.

Maybe they use 12ch on 6 chips to get the higher iops but not the bandwidth, so it would be 6x 1200MT which could be more expensive at launch but a good long term choice. I don't know if that's even possible to do. I don't know if nand have virtual channels.

 

Manufacturing a part in house does not necessarily mean cost savings over those sourced from a 3rd party. Figuring out that actual amount, however, will be near impossible unless Sony chooses to share.