Post Xbox One Two Scorpio, what should Sony do next? *spawn* (oh, and Nintendo?)

[turkey]

If i'm to believe the rumours i think Sony's strategy is much sounder.

They upgraded their console knowing exactly what they were going to need to provide a good experience on the VR platform they have developed. A nice upgrade, but no such a big leap that will make the OG PS4 obsolete from the start, dividing the userbase.

XB1.5 in the other hand is almost a full upgrade. I really don't see how games optimized for the new console are going to even run on the OG Xbox. Also they will be relying on a third party to provide them with a VR headset which will be way more expensive that PSVR.

Far far cheaper for Microsoft

For the customers no more expensive than PC, and if also compatible with that device that's a lot of content ready and waiting, possibly also cross platform compatibility then.

They may slip in with mk2 headset or similar with cost reductions , DRM on the Oculus side means you can sell the console headset cheaper and lock it out the PC space if you wanted. Keep both parties happy with managing price differences.

The CPU may just be specified to make VR possible if they go Oculus, Jaguar does not seem even close to Oculus Min spec. Neo cannot help with ports if PS4 vanilla must be the base release.

 

[trainplane]

To me, it's the XBox One that needs the upgrade desperately, even if it was 4 TF instead of 6. Neo just seems redundant. It's like going from high 1080p to ultra 1080p whereas XBox One-2 is like going from medium 900p to ultra 1080p.

Neo isn't a big enough leap to sell to upgraders. It'll mostly be new buyers I predict. And Sony doesn't want upgraders anyway. They want to grow the userbase. I think Sony made Neo for a number of reasons, part technical (14nm), part experimental (see how console market reacts to PC like cross-gen), part VR support, and part market competition (NX, Scorpio, Pascal, Polaris), but if Neo didn't exist, I don't think Sony would be in a much worse position.

As for cross-gen scaling, I think having better textures and AA is nice, but I'd really like to see if games can be more ambitious with the scaling. For a car game for instance, New XBox has weather effects, car damage, increased car count, and global illumination that old XBox can't do. But that might be too ambitious.

 

[rockaman]

Neo isn't a big enough leap to sell to upgraders. It'll mostly be new buyers I predict. And Sony doesn't want upgraders anyway. They want to grow the userbase. I think Sony made Neo for a number of reasons, part technical (14nm), part experimental (see how console market reacts to PC like cross-gen), part VR support, and part market competition (NX, Scorpio, Pascal, Polaris), but if Neo didn't exist, I don't think Sony would be in a much worse position.

I think this is exactly their strategy, to continue at a high pace of increasing the userbase for PS4 as a whole. A very ballsy strategy to try out.

And the other reasons you list are also I think are primary reasons too.

 

[Jwm]

Well the latest windows insider email was interesting in regards to AR/VR/MR devices from/for the MS ecosystem. At first I read it wrong and thought we would see more headsets from MS. I guess if you want these devices to flourish, you want them on your ecosystem and driven by your devices first. It would open up 'Xbox 3.11 with VR groups' to have a broader price point when you look at the various devices that should be on the market by this timeframe.

"Starting soon, Windows Holographic will be coming to devices of all shapes and sizes – from fully immersive virtual reality to fully untethered holographic computing."

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I've said it before but why can't you have optimized games for the new and old console ?

You can if publishers are willing to pay developers for the additional time it takes. Optimisation periods span weeks to months.

 

[rokkerkory]

Reality does not work that way. Xbox One was $299 for more than half a year now. They reduced it to $300 as a promotion, and they just never ended it. Stocks won't move any faster than they are now.

You are right but with incentives it was $299. Now it's formally $299 but with incentives like Target GC of $30-50 it's effectively $249 in the minds of consumers. I bet it'll be $199 with incentives this Fall, they still have some time before Scorpio gets here so even more discounts can be had.

 

[davygee]

This seems to be a full generational upgrade for Microsoft, unlike the Neo which is a mid-term upgraded system. What MS are doing is saying goodbye to the One, there is no other way to look at it. Yeah, the One-Two will probably be backwards compatible, but will titles for the new machine run (albeit at a decreased level) on the current One????? Also by the time the One-Two comes out (Nov 2017), Sony will already have this generation tied up and have a foot in the next generation with the Neo. What seems to be apparent now is that Sony are looking at slowly moving up in quality but retaining compatibility (for a designated timescale) with each new iteration of the PS4 hardware. MS are jumping the gun and saying bye-bye to this generation and want to kickstart the next generation early.

Seeing as the One is currently cheaper and is being outsold in the US and Worldwide by the more expensive PS4, shows that there isn't much MS can do about that now. When the Neo is released in 3-4 months from now, it will probably come in around $399 and I fully expect the current PS4 to have a permanent pricecut to $250-$299, so unless the One is reduced to $199, sales will continue to soar with the PS4.

By the time the One-Two is released, the PS4/Neo will more than likely have a 60-80m install-base and yeah, the One-Two will come out as the biggest and most powerful home console in Nov 2017, but the price will match. All Sony need to do is reduce the PS4/Neo price right before it launches to ps4($200), Neo ($300-$350) and the $400-$500 One-Two will struggle.

Maybe I will be wrong, but it just seems like a hard task for MS.

 

[BRiT]

Do people still expect PS4 Neo to hit this fall?

 

[Silenti]

Do people still expect PS4 Neo to hit this fall?

Kind of wondering that myself. Manufacturing would have to start soon at the least. You would expect more leaks about the details if it was in production.

 

[Scott_Arm]

At first when Neo and One-Two were announced I thought they were a bigger spec bump than I would have predicted. I was really surprised the details were 4TF and 6TF respectively. Now AMD announces a $200 GPU that's 5.5TF and suddenly those consoles don't seem all that special. Neo is basically going to launch as very low-end hardware and One-Two will be low-mid range at best, depending on the cpu and RAM. Going back to pc is for the first time in a very long time looking very attractive.

 

[rockaman]

The AMD announcement is really interesting, I have similar feelings. But in a way it was almost predictable from AMD end maybe? Consoles do tend to launch in the mid-tier PC performance space by the time of their launch.

I think 5.5 TF in a console GPU could do some serious magic, if it ends up that high that is. Would be pretty sweet. I expect it underclocks to ~5 TF though.

 

[MrFox]

There's some discrepancies about the RX480 specs, pricing, and power depending on the source.

The 200 price point seems to be the 4GB version and 5TF, and a 150W TDP according to anandtech. If this is chosen to be the lowest binning, a custom console APU would probably be around this conservative clock too.

We should remember the clocking of the PS4/XB1 didn't deviate much from the equivalent 28nm GCN which started at 860MHz on the GPUs, and 760MHz or 800MHz on the A10 APUs. There was not ludicrous 1100MHz on consoles because they'd have to throw away the chips that don't yield well at that frequency. The PC market can have all sort of small variations and even the same card vendors make multiple version "OC edition", "OC Xtreme Super Bro" depending on binning, while consoles need to be all identical.

If the normal clock is 1080MHz, maybe Sony chose 911MHz to keep the console around 150W total, or maybe there are other limitations of having it in an SoC instead of a separate GPU chip. Just like the A10 series and the PS4/XB1 SoCs versus their equivalent stand alone GPUs?

 

[iroboto]

Do people still expect PS4 Neo to hit this fall?

Based on the rumours apparently some console is releasing this fall. And we know it's not NX. And MS is unlikely.


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[rockaman]

Based on the rumours apparently some console is releasing this fall. And we know it's not NX. And MS is unlikely.


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Yea I think NEO has best chance to release now. It seems conservative enough in power and such to hit this holiday. We will know in 11 days ^^

 

[liolio]

As for what Sony should do, they should stay the course. There's nothing to be gained in an overt reactionary power race. Considering they were beating the competition before having their plans ironed out, we can assume they have their own views on their hardware's priority beyond simply competing with the other guys.

If they wanted, they could release another box down the line if they so chose.

INdeed by jumping on the gun MSFT put themselves in an original XBOX type of position, that is just after pretty sound failure looking at where they stood in the market last gen. It is as if they were caught in a F nasty temporal loop. They should an action movie with Tom Cruise "the xbox after tomorrow" it would be great

 

[iroboto]

Yea I think NEO has best chance to release now. It seems conservative enough in power and such to hit this holiday. We will know in 11 days ^^

If not Neo, then a new entrant has arrived.


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[rockaman]

If not Neo, then a new entrant has arrived.


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Spoiler

inb4 Apple Pippin II

 

[Scott_Arm]

3DO2!

 

[BRiT]

Based on the rumours apparently some console is releasing this fall. And we know it's not NX. And MS is unlikely.

Depends if they count XBox One SLIM as a new console contract.

 

[DieH@rd]

Kind of wondering that myself. Manufacturing would have to start soon at the least.

PS4 mass manufacture started in August for November launch with 1-1.25M consoles per month.

I don't think Sony will order that quantity of Neos.