Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[DuckThor Evil]

2007 - 16gb for 225 dollars to consumer
2009 - 40gb for less then 100 dollar to consumer

more then half the price with 5 times' more capacity i 2 years

and still you don't belive that 200gb at around 30-40 dollar to produce in 2013?

Umm 5 x 16 = 80GB... Besides you can't expect similar progress in the future. In 2007 those things were rare and basically the first models, similar how the first 40-50" Plasma TV's cost +10000$ in the beginning. With your logic we should have 500" Plasmas with 10$ these days. You can basically expect SSD's to double in capacity or halved in price per year, and even that is imo little optimistic.

Also the console manufacturers don't produce memory so they have to pay more.

 

[assen]

$30-40 is not good enough; HDDs cost around $40 to Microsoft when they dumped them in the Xbox1 -> 360 transition.

 

[Gubbi]

I expect 2 SKUs.
1. A "Arcade" SKU with 32GB flash, with 5-10 GB reserved for system stuff, 10 GB for caching, and the rest usable for game patches, and downloadable content.
2. A "Pro" SKU, similar to the Arcade, but with a 500GB HDD for installing games/downloading full games.

The entry level SKU has almost all the capabilities of the Pro, but at entry level prices.

Cheers

 

[Crossbar]

You can basically expect SSD's to double in capacity or halved in price per year, and even that is imo little optimistic.

So true, the price drop of flash basically halted last year. The investments in new efficient production lines seem to have been stalled by the bank crash.

Hopefully the price of flash will drop more this year.

 

[Crossbar]

$30-40 is not good enough; HDDs cost around $40 to Microsoft when they dumped them in the Xbox1 -> 360 transition.

I agree, I think around $20 could be the threshold.

I expect 2 SKUs.
1. A "Arcade" SKU with 32GB flash, with 5-10 GB reserved for system stuff, 10 GB for caching, and the rest usable for game patches, and downloadable content.
2. A "Pro" SKU, similar to the Arcade, but with a 500GB HDD for installing games/downloading full games.

The entry level SKU has almost all the capabilities of the Pro, but at entry level prices.

I expect something similar, maybe a bit scaled down with regard to the storage sizes.

 

[PalmiNio]

Umm 5 x 16 = 80GB... Besides you can't expect similar progress in the future. In 2007 those things were rare and basically the first models, similar how the first 40-50" Plasma TV's cost +10000$ in the beginning. With your logic we should have 500" Plasmas with 10$ these days. You can basically expect SSD's to double in capacity or halved in price per year, and even that is imo little optimistic.

Also the console manufacturers don't produce memory so they have to pay more.

Oooo sorry.

Well NAND flash and SSD didn't find light in 2007, but far earlier. And you presume that the SSD in a console has to be of the same structure of a SSD for PC, which doesn't have to be the case. You can have an alternative format instead of 2,5" SATA.

The cost could be decreased with a controller directly on the motherboard and a more compact set of chips. With a traditional drive you have to buy the 2,5” drive in the same state as a end consumer would, so you woul’d have no control of costs. This was the problem with Xbox 1.

With SSD you could buy the controller architecture and implement it into the motherboard. Then just buy the flash chip from how every sell to the best price.

All I’m saying is that with a traditional drive you’re stuck with a 20-40 dollar in direct cost throughout the generation which renders the chance to make a 99 dollars console with profit impossible.
Let’s face it,

Sonys biggest problem today is that they are stuck with a fixed cost on hard drive that will make it impossible for them to compete in price with Xbox 360 below 199-149 dollars and still have a profit. The 20-40 dollars on the HDD will eat up the margins below 199 dollar.

With an integrated controller and the ability to buy chips depending on the price from the different producers gives the plattformholder the chance to control the cost over time and reduce it.

 

[PalmiNio]

So true, the price drop of flash basically halted last year. The investments in new efficient production lines seem to have been stalled by the bank crash.

Hopefully the price of flash will drop more this year.

Yeah, but the entry of far more competitors and increased investment today will without doubt generate a large supply and lower price in 2-5 years time.

All big firms know that SSD is the way of the future and the big players are ramping up to get a piece of the action.

 

[Gubbi]

All I’m saying is that with a traditional drive you’re stuck with a 20-40 dollar in direct cost throughout the generation which renders the chance to make a 99 dollars console with profit impossible.

The dramatic fall in SSD prices is because of a huge overhang of flash production capacity. Now that SSDs are no longer boutique items, it's back to doubling-of-capacity-per-buck-every-two-years trend.

Currently, contract prices for the cheapest MLC nand flash runs at $15 per 8GB. This means that a 2012 console launch can expect to pack 32GB, - or $30 worth, of flash, which will cost reduce to $5-7 during its lifetime.

So you're right, this gives a cheap entry level SKU, but there is no way than flash can replace HDDs for mass storage next gen.

Cheers

 

[AlNom]

Any idea what the fees are like for the controller?

 

[swaaye]

Desktop drives are much bigger, heavier, more power hungry, and their costs don't go down as much as 2.5" as bigger drives are released because they take more materials to make, their platters are more expensive, their motors are beefier and thus more expensive etc. They'd end up costing more, a lot more. Why do you think MS moved from 3.5" in the xbox to 2.5" in the 360?

Consider that the original Xbox wasn't as much as console as it was a semi-custom PC. They went off the shelf in many ways with a sort of emachines mentality IMO. I figured that they moved to 2.5" HDDs to make it more feasible to sell them separately for outrageous prices and have it look nice and slim.

By your logic you'd think that all computers would use notebook drives, but that's not the case. Also, DVRs often use 3.5" HDDs. 3.5" drives are definitely cheaper per capacity. I have a feeling that console manufacturers could negotiate a nice deal with any HDD company.

 

[ban25]

Considering the increasing volume of 2.5" disk sales, from both the mobile and enterprise sectors, it makes sense to assume that form factor will find its way into future consoles once again.

 

[corduroygt]

Consider that the original Xbox wasn't as much as console as it was a semi-custom PC. They went off the shelf in many ways with a sort of emachines mentality IMO. I figured that they moved to 2.5" HDDs to make it more feasible to sell them separately for outrageous prices and have it look nice and slim.

By your logic you'd think that all computers would use notebook drives, but that's not the case. Also, DVRs often use 3.5" HDDs. 3.5" drives are definitely cheaper per capacity. I have a feeling that console manufacturers could negotiate a nice deal with any HDD company.

DVR's are a special case, because HD video needs lots of storage, far more than a console, which is made for the "average" user. Pretty much everything else beside that and desktops is 2.5" and I fully expect this to continue.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Talk about this-gen cost reduction moved here.

 

[liolio]

I hope for 16GB of flash in every SKU, that should be cheap enough and be enough to handle caching, a more complex OS and some arcade games and patches.
I also hope that full/partial game installation will become a thing of he past. It's clearly a transitional solution consoles are not computer I hope this to hold true.

Other than that don't you think that a SSD could be seen as a competitive advantage?
There were a discussion some pages ago about the amount of RAM we could expect by 2012. It appears that we can't expect more than 2GB of RAM on a 128bits bus. It's not the huge generational jump we're used to, having some extra GB some µs away could be a great help.

 

[swaaye]

DVR's are a special case, because HD video needs lots of storage, far more than a console, which is made for the "average" user. Pretty much everything else beside that and desktops is 2.5" and I fully expect this to continue.

And what happens when the ever-growing console games become digitally distributed? You're going to want a lot of storage. I can't imagine that the next machines would skip this.

But I agree with your take on them staying 2.5" only because it's easy to turn that drive into an add-on accessory and, in console tradition, charge an unreal sum of money for it.

 

[Boxercide]

And what happens when the ever-growing console games become digitally distributed? You're going to want a lot of storage. I can't imagine that the next machines would skip this.

But I agree with your take on them staying 2.5" only because it's easy to turn that drive into an add-on accessory and, in console tradition, charge an unreal sum of money for it.

Yes, because Sony charges so mu...what's that?

 

[Squilliam]

And what happens when the ever-growing console games become digitally distributed? You're going to want a lot of storage. I can't imagine that the next machines would skip this.

But I agree with your take on them staying 2.5" only because it's easy to turn that drive into an add-on accessory and, in console tradition, charge an unreal sum of money for it.

I doubt you'd be HDD limited by most games. I would say the biggest problem is bandwidth, especially on a shared connection. Even downloading say 500MB to start a game would be outside of most peoples attention spans.

 

[fehu]

I doubt you'd be HDD limited by most games. I would say the biggest problem is bandwidth, especially on a shared connection. Even downloading say 500MB to start a game would be outside of most peoples attention spans.

Last year's Watchmen was 2GB, and a moderate success

 

[Rangers]

Wasn't Battlefield 1943 or whatever it was called a big hit?

 

[brain_stew]

Wasn't Battlefield 1943 or whatever it was called a big hit?

Highest selling XBLA release of 2009 iirc.