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

[eastmen]

By people of VR you mean that absolute minority? Same as people with 4K TV?

they are different things.

Sony is going to launch their own vr which will only be used with the ps4. If it offers a sub par platform that is what customers will remember and they will see content come out for the much more powerful pc and eventually scorpio .

4k tv is different , its a tv upgrade that lets you use your console and regular tv services at higher quality.


If sony isn't careful they will poison the well so to speak for vr

 

[goonergaz]

I think they release Neo within 6-9 months then in another ~3 years we'll get PS5 - just a couple years after Scorpio - seems MS likely it get just ~2 years with the most powahful console

 

[MrFox]

How does canceling Neo make any sense?

The difference between 4.2TF and 6TF isn't a lot, and Sony have a lot of momentum. I'm not seeing it causing a big reversal in sales, it will only help MS get back on track.

[drama]
They only way Neo could fail is if they force online DRM, repeatedly talk condescendingly about gamers, tell people to buy a PS4 if they don't like it, use inexpensive main ram and patch it's performance with internal SRAM making it difficult to reach native resolution, force bundle the camera, say the camera cannot be separated from Neo, launch $100 above the competition despite the lower specs, make it a very large enclosure with an external power supply, announce Neo with a focus on TV and sports, then remove online DRM at the last minute, wait a year before unbundling the camera, claim it will be 3 times more powerful because of the cloud, but never deliver. Piss off indies just in case this isn't enough. They'd also have to close Naughty Dog.
[/drama]

 

[Scott_Arm]

Cancelling neo is not going to happen. They hardware is basically done and dev kits have been sent out. Devs have already started working on it. Sony is not going to take a bath on millions in investments, piss off devs, and then have to dump millions to start the whole process over again.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't understand how they can launch a new platform this year and not even mention it at e3, let alone show it or content for it.

 

[AzBat]

The difference between 4.2TF and 6TF isn't a lot

Huh? I'm not real good with tech specs, but the difference between PS4 & XB1 was about half a TF. The difference between Scorpio & Neo is almost twice that. If I'm wrong, then please educate me how that's not a big deal.

Tommy McClain

 

[upnorthsox]

For example, they could change the GPU clocks from 910MHz to Polaris 10's ~1200MHz and GDDR5 clocks to 8GT/s, effectively boosting its specs to 5.5 TFLOPs and 256GB/s.

And on the flip side 36CU@1250Mhz= 5.8Tflops + 160gflops jaguar = rounding 6tflops and esram@1250Mhz = 320GBs. Not saying that's how it is but you don't have to get that exotic to meet numbers.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I don't understand how they can launch a new platform this year and not even mention it at e3, let alone show it or content for it.

Probably because it won't launch this year. It'll be next year, in the spring, unless they have another big stage to announce it before Black Friday.

 

[AzBat]

I don't understand how they can launch a new platform this year and not even mention it at e3, let alone show it or content for it.

Wasn't the rumor they were holding it off until TGS in August? Makes sense if the early 2017 launch rumor was true. I suspect they could have announced it at E3 if they knew MS wasn't announcing Scorpio this year & only showed their Slim.

Tommy McClain

 

[function]

Wouldn't wider with lower clocks be better? Consoles tend to come in a little below top end GPU speeds, presumably for yield and power reasons. Zen's likely to draw more power than Jag on 14 nm, so that's another reason to be careful about power.

50% more CUs at slightly lower clocks seems like a better option than the same number of CUs at 50% higher clocks. At least from a flops/watt POV.

1.5 x the CUs of Neo, at 850 mHz should give you the 4.14 to 5.8 thing, supposing for just a moment that those were the final figures. 6 TF would be about 880.

I was hoping to see esram or HBM2 in X12, as always thought HBM2 might be too pricey. Sad to see that the esram is probably still not there even in its absence. 320 GB/s for a next gen system is kinda 'meh'.

Might get 64 ROPs though ....

 

[Kaotik]

Wouldn't wider with lower clocks be better? Consoles tend to come in a little below top end GPU speeds, presumably for yield and power reasons. Zen's likely to draw more power than Jag on 14 nm, so that's another reason to be careful about power.

50% more CUs at slightly lower clocks seems like a better option than the same number of CUs at 50% higher clocks. At least from a flops/watt POV.

Zen is supposed to scale from the very low power devices all the way up to high end, just like skylake from Intel for example

 

[trainplane]

Indications to me are Sony won't release Neo in 2016. If they had games ready to show, they would. There is no way they'd have skipped this if they had products ready. E3 is the hype conference for everything from June 2016 to holiday 2016, and even beyond.

Oh, and for AzBat, re difference between 4 TF and 6 TF, see this from above. What it looks on paper doesn't always correlate to what is visually distinguishable:

Another thing I'm wondering is how much the performance difference of Scorpio will really show, especially on a 1080p tv. I mean, 4k is starting to kick off, but a lot of people will still be using 1080p sets. My personal opinion is diminishing returns is a real thing, and I don't know if PS4 being less sub-4k than Scorpio is going to be noticeable to anyone but pixel counters. That's the likely scenario, that they are both 1080p+ and scale to 4k. A $50-100 price difference to get 3200x1800 instead of 2560x1440, or something like that? Who knows. I don't think people would notice the resolution at all, if that's how it worked out.

 

[eastmen]

Huh? I'm not real good with tech specs, but the difference between PS4 & XB1 was about half a TF. The difference between Scorpio & Neo is almost twice that. If I'm wrong, then please educate me how that's not a big deal.

Tommy McClain

because this time sony is at the disadvantage so its not a big deal.

Its giogn to be interesting to see what both consoles finally end up at.

 

[function]

Zen is supposed to scale from the very low power devices all the way up to high end, just like skylake from Intel for example

True, but I can't see it scaling low enough for 8 core Zen to consume less power than 8 core Jag, without hitting the point that tiny little "area lite" Jaguar would be a better choice. It should be a lot faster though.

 

[MrFox]

Huh? I'm not real good with tech specs, but the difference between PS4 & XB1 was about half a TF. The difference between Scorpio & Neo is almost twice that. If I'm wrong, then please educate me how that's not a big deal.

Tommy McClain

1.84TF / 1.32TF = 1.4x
6TF / 4.2TF = 1.4x

For the same game with identical shaders and everything, the resolution difference would be 1.4x the number of pixels... which means 1.18x in each axis.

Therefore, 2160p Scorpio and 1830p Neo would be equivalent.

 

[iroboto]

Small chance Sony will abort Neo and go back to the drawing board. Small. I suppose that depends highly on how successful PSVR is with PS4.

I don't think we are going to see another refresh shortly after Neo and Scorpio. If they are properly positioned in terms of hardware that particular generation should last. As we can see here titles on XBO failing to hit 1080p was a signal. But if 4K is right around the corner the Scorpio is well timed for it. It's possible that Sony will repurpose Neo to ensure its equally able to compete.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Silent_Buddha]

True, but I can't see it scaling low enough for 8 core Zen to consume less power than 8 core Jag, without hitting the point that tiny little "area lite" Jaguar would be a better choice. It should be a lot faster though.

8 core Zen on 14/16 nm might not be less power than 8 core Jag on 14/16, but it's entirely possible that 8 core Zen on 14/16 is lower power than 8 core Jag on 28 nm.

At that point it fits within the power envelope required for a console and the presumably increased CPU power will be a better fit for a 6 TFLOP GPU than the current Jag architecture.

Regards,
SB

 

[function]

8 core Zen on 14/16 nm might not be less power than 8 core Jag on 14/16, but it's entirely possible that 8 core Zen on 14/16 is lower power than 8 core Jag on 28 nm.

At that point it fits within the power envelope required for a console and the presumably increased CPU power will be a better fit for a 6 TFLOP GPU than the current Jag architecture.

Indeed, but in terms of the heat you've got to get out of your system, it's still and increase, and a possible reason to go wider but lower on GPU clocks.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Current consoles have consistently received price cuts. I doubt the margins are much better at all esp in the case of something like the slim

Xbox One has received consistent price cuts but not PlayStation 4. What companies charge you is really what they can get away with charging you. It's supply, demand and market forces. That's how business works. You don't sell at $10 if you can sell at $20. It depends on yours desired volumes. Consoles will have a sizeable margin because profit is good and because having a really thin margin means that an unfavourable exchanges rate may mean you have to rate prices, which are the least desirable outcome.

The cost of technology production will follow an inverse bell curve; falling until it becomes niche and therefore where continued production will begin to cost more and more.

Developers have supported new hardware in the past which is why we aren't all still on Atari systems. Developers are also targeting video cards of higher power already. So the dev support is there.

Support and target are different things. Games are generally not targeting high-end system specification.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

By people of VR you mean that absolute minority? Same as people with 4K TV?

The new consoles are targeting the future, not now You have to skate to where the puck will be in x years, not where it is now. I recall the same argument being made for why games should target 720p over 1080p - because 720p TVs were the majority. Or 1024x768 over 1280x1024.This is the same short sighted argument for people who can't see how quickly daily tech moves forwards and becomes the majority, then the minimum base.

Funny how things change. Fast.