Sony PS6, Microsoft neXtBox - 10th gen console speculation [2020]

My point is the two are not mutual exclusive. You're describing a scenario that will happen due to the increased access to fast cheap reliable internet! Thats my point.
Although I agree that eventually discs won't be a thing, I have my reservations that by the 10th gen there won't be a disc model.

Data prices are still an issue in large parts of the developing world including their metropolitan areas. Looking at the data costs of cities in South Africa and Uganda its prohibitively expensive yet its not as reliable or as fast as what you'd get in the US. Maybe that could change by the 10th gen as you suggested.

 

Sony don't been to put drives into all PS6 consoles, they can take the same approach as they have take with PS5. People who want the drive from games or movies can buy that one, others can buy the Digital Edition.

Even with digital game sales being above the 40% mark for a few years, the perception was Sony were still making way more Full Fat PS5 consoles than Digital Editions models. That ought to tell you something at least; that Sony has numbers to support decisions like that. That could be a combination of things like the number of PlayStation consoles used for movies even when people are buying digital games, and the number of consoles used to play older disc games even when new game releases are selling more digitally.

It would be foolish for anybody to take 2020's digital/physical numbers at face value, lots of people had limited options to buy discs-based games. It was find here in the UK but not all country's distribution and delivery systems were carrying on like normal.

 

My point is that Sony has a bunch of user behavior data. It has intimate knowledge of how gamers use their PS consoles.

That data serves as the ultimate metric and is sufficient to determine whether or not to exclude drives.

 

My guess is if digital sales reach around 60 to 70%, they will either try to sell discless version as their main SKU with disc version being a premium SKU (so instead 400 for discless, it will be 500. Disc version will be 600) or my preferred method is just have one type of console with external drive add-on. (sell the console bundled with the drive for 600 and standalone external drive for 150). Probably they could sell it with the drive for 550, but I doubt they will be that generous, especially if they need to sell next gen console at a loss.

 

There will be no "nextbox" or "PS6". In 0 years time, Xbox and Playstation will be storefronts/platforms with streaming apps that you will launch on your smartTV. The economics of it makes this scenario inescapable: what is going to go down in price more quickly (if at all)? Bandwidth and dataplans or silicon?

 

We’ve been saying that for a while. And Google tried it. You’re saying Sony and MS are going to look at Stadia and go “oooh I want some of that!”. Nope.

 

Silicon if you're in the US. Seriously.

In over 20 years of only having 1 choice in internet providers my datacap is still lower than it was years ago. It started at 2TB during trials years ago (decades) with non-enforcement, it was dropped to 1TB when cap measuring was enforced and it took a international pandemic and tons of bad pressure on social media and the news in order for them to bump it from 1TB to 1.25TB. Fuck these monopoly internet providers. Seriously. Fuck these monopolies.

 

my prediction, ps6 gpu on pair with rtx4080, ps5pro close to rtx3080

 

Do you think that Sony and MS (M$!!) want to buy all those chips for themselves and hope they can rent them out? Selling the chips is a much better business model.

 

Not everywhere in the world has affordable reliable highbandwidth internet access. In 14 years highly likely but in 7 years?? Alienating large parts of the world with higher long term growth would be a disaster for Sony and MSFT if they simply switched to cloud streaming before high bandwidth internet is affordable and reliable in all their markets.

 

PS6 likely to be more on par with rtx 4060. RTX 4xxx series should be same node as RX 7xxx.

 

nah, ps5 is on pair with rtx 3060(not ti) not counting rt, it will be bigger jump

 

PS5 is somewhat faster then a 5700XT, or perhaps kinda on par in normal rendering.
Or 2070/S depending on title.

I'd take a 3060 class gpu over whats in the ps5.

 

https://tpucdn.com/review/msi-gefor...rio/images/relative-performance_3840-2160.png

 

This has been my perspective on this particular discussion, and you can actually even find Gen 3 USB sticks of similar bandwidth and capacities for even cheaper. I've come across at least one that is a brand name, and these are MSRP prices so the actually manufacturing and production costs would be at least 50% lower than that.

I don't know if anyone is conflating me saying removing physical disc support means dropping physical game distribution whatsoever, but that's not been my point at all. I'm just saying that physical distribution several years out from now will be better served with small-capacity microSD cards on some interface like UHS-III, or even USB thumb drives at USB 2.0 interface speeds, etc. Route them through the decompression logic, suddenly a 128 GB game card can house 512 GB of game data, theoretically speaking (it would be a bit less than that but not by much; depends on the actual decompression capability of the system in question for this).

Considering, again, today you can find 120 MB/s - 150 MB/s USB drives for anywhere between $10 - $20 at 128 GB capacities, to me that suggests if anything, Sony and/or Microsoft could opt to some type of USB-based micro-storage card as a replacement physical media delivery format over Blu-Ray disc, get at least comparable raw bandwidth, but potentially much higher effective bandwidth via compression, delivered over USB Gen 2 or Gen 3 (let's just say Gen 2 for having the cheaper factor) and that data decompressed through the decompressor logic to internal storage. Prices will only keep getting lower and you don't even need anything more than 50 MB/s to beat even the fastest current or future Blu-Ray formats for effective bandwidth once we factor compression/decompression into the mix.

So markets with bad internet caps, infrastructure etc. are actually being served better through this hypothetical physical format versus any future Blu-Ray drive inclusion, and it also saves the console manufacturer billions of dollars over the lifetime of the system's production. It's almost a literal no-brainer IMHO.

This is probably an even better implementation of what we've been discussing, in all honesty. Maybe the only complications would come from volume of kiosks at physical stores to serve a large number of people sufficiently, assuming people are still buying physical at rates comparable to today. But, this approach has another benefit of saving even more money for hardware manufacturers, that's something they're always looking to do. Why package and distribute discs or even (what I was theorizing above) some USB-interfaced micro-storage card format, both of which are still a few dollars per boxed unit to manufacture, package, ship and distribute etc.? When the user can just use a USB drive they already own?

I guess a possible concern could be in hacking, doing some funny stuff on the person's USB drive/device so they can fake an inauthentic key once the game's been downloaded to it, assuming they're using generic/off-the-shelf drives/devices usable with any other device including a PC. Then again I guess that's always something of a concern with any drive or device interfacing over a ubiquitous, universal and generic bus. Increased security measures would probably go a long way to discourage that kind of thing, though.

 

No, there will definitely be a PS6 and Xbox Next in seven or so years' time. Streaming, even the best setups like Stadia and Xcloud (or even with the Origin tech I hear about from iD time to time), still have latency that impacts certain levels of precision performance in competitive games. Now it can be argued that since those playing such competitive games are just a sliver of the total console market, if left with no boxes to purchase they would simply go over to PC.

Which is almost 100% true. However, I think the ongoing issues with Apple, Google etc. and the fight for storefronts to exist as genuine storefronts on their devices shows that technological limitations or advances won't be the only (or even major) deciding factor in enabling or (IMHO) defeating an all-streaming 10th-gen. It's going to come from the fear of fallout that results from loss of vertical integration. Microsoft already is feeling this with getting GamePass and Xcloud on Apple devices; if Sony were to try something similar with PS Now, they'd be met with the same pushback. There is a level of security afforded by fully controlling the software and hardware stack, once you give that up it's nigh impossible to get back.

At most, supposing 10th-gen is streaming-based, the very least we're still going to get Sony and Microsoft PlayStation/Xbox-branded streaming box clients that they will use to provide their cloud streaming services through with full vertical integration. Out of the two, Sony would be more reluctant in providing that streaming option on at least non-Sony devices, but they could technically extend its offering beyond a PlayStation device to their phones, televisions, etc. For Microsoft a cloud streaming-based 10th-gen Xbox would be something more of an option, since they are more receptive to providing GamePass and Xcloud wherever it's accepted, including other hardware ecosystems (Apple devices, Google devices, Samsung devices etc.).

There's...actually perhaps an upside to a cloud-based 10th-gen system; the local hardware power needed for such a device would be much less than building millions of consoles needing to all provide that gaming performance through local native hardware. Saving on BOMs by hundreds per unit, putting that budget onto other aspects of the design to ensure streaming capability is top-notch. They would still develop physical 10th-gen system designs at the hardware level of course, but they would only be for their server clouds. Upside here is that they could design more powerful/capable designs since the volume of instances they'd need to manufacture for their server blades would be magnitudes less than producing 10s of millions to 100s of millions of the units over a console lifetime.

So then that budget excess could be moved towards other hardware; 10th-gen I think, Sony will want to try standardizing a VR/AR experience while still complementing a traditional experience. So the money they'd have to put towards GPU, RAM, mass storage etc., could be shifted towards inclusion of some next-gen VR headset, with wireless as a standard option, pushing VR further with more innovations etc. I don't know what that does for the PlayStation gamers who'd just want a "traditional" PS6 though; not just those who have it as a preference but also those who require it because they don't have good internet for streaming. Would Sony just let them move to PC? Possibly, but maybe that's where the shifting strategy of bringing more PS games to PC comes in. I think we're going to see a lot more advancement between Sony and EGS, I won't be surprised if eventually Sony and Epic enter some mutual profit model and EGS is rebranded to something PlayStation-related, folding PS Now into it as well as PS +, online multiplayer becoming free and that rebranded service/storefront also becoming a part of PS6.

Especially if Microsoft do by some chance end up purchasing Valve/Steam, I could definitely see this happen with Sony/EGS going forward. And maybe Sony just basically soft-rebuilds their PC division under a PlayStation branding and try their own Steambox-type model with their own OS, integrating the OS and some PS/EGS storefront service in one integrated package, throw a PS controller in there and price it aggressively/semi-aggressively (vaguely similar to what a console'd cost, but somewhat pricier) to attract the PlayStation people who still want a native/non-streaming gaming experience without completely sacrificing them to open PC.

Microsoft, like I was saying before, they'd be a lot more content in this timeline to just put out a streaming box for 10th-gen; any Xbox people who want a native experience just go to PC, this works out particularly well if MS somehow acquires Steam. I doubt they'd do a Steambox-type approach, though in such a case or, if they did, it'd be at very small numbers. But again, this is ALL assuming you're right about an all-cloud based 10th-gen which, I don't necessarily see being the case. But then again, seven years is a long time from now, and anything can happen, so I definitely keep this option open

 

Yes , I was thinking an sd card as it looks just like a cart. But a usb stick can also work. I don't see a need to limit them to usb 2. Might as well do usb 3 at the time frame of a next gen console (6 years from now ? ) I think a usb stick can introduce an easy point of failure which is the usb plug. Its not hard for one to snap off and damage the connector also. An sd card reader is pretty hard to damage.


Bluray 16x is only 72MB/s so yes I would agree that 50MB/s could beat blu-ray. I think the goal would be to exceed bluray esp in terms of larger games. If we move out 5 years to 2025/6 in terms of a next gen system. It will surely have moved to 24gigs of ram at least and game sizes should have expanded to keep up with it. I think the 150MB/s transfer or greater would be a pretty good focus point in terms of improving the experiance. .

But we should look at the full effect of moving toward one of these other solutions.

USB drive would require only a front facing usb port. So costs would be extremely minimal as i believe both consoles already do this. SD cards would require an sd reader also a low cost solution. Both would cost dollars where as a blu ray drive is roughly 20-30.

Then you have physical volume. You can see the additional space bluray needs on the ps5. It adds that ugly hub.

Both an sd card and usb drive would take up less room than an optical disc in terms of packaging , shipping and store shelves .


So i could see it being a possibility going forward


Look at the chart in this article
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/the...-dropped-more-than-86percent-in-13-years.html

in 2018 sales of dvd were down drasticly , but they are still on the level of bluray which never took off.

 

Yeah the end plug on thumb drives is definitely a potential concern for moving things into that direction for physical delivery, but I think designing a custom form factor for such a micro-storage where the plug is effectively shielded in surrounding plastic, that way the micro-storage kind of "slots in" to the system like older NES cartridges or SD cards (for a more modern example), can be ejected easily, through a front USB port. The plug itself is still standard USB but it'd be recessed into the system so the micro-storage slots in and plugs inside without disrupting the system's form factor with a protrusion.

If you do that it increases the overall reliability dramatically and IMHO ends up being cheaper than SD card; looking at a few 60 MB/s USB drives and SD/microSD cards, I notice that the latter go for anywhere around 60% to 2x the price, on average. But that's comparing SD/microSD cards to traditional thumb drives, which have a very different purpose. You wouldn't use thumb drives with smartphones and most mobile devices like tablets, for instance.

I think getting any such hypothetical micro-storage at around 150 MB/s or so for bandwidth, either depends on luck of how much pricing for storage/flash at sufficient quantities and speeds/latencies comes down over the next few years, or you just "fake" it by pushing strong compression (let's say 4x general data compression; maybe this should be looked at in terms of lossless compression instead though?) but this means that interfacing USB port needs to route to the decompression I/O block. AFAIK, the USB ports on PS5 and Series systems don't with their systems, that logic is exclusively reserved for internal SSD storage (default and expandable).

The latter option though, say even if you only go with 80 MB/s micro-storage thumb carts, lossless that is anywhere up to 160 MB/s and with higher compression levels (using PS5 as an example here) that could go up to 320 MB/s of compressed data. Blu-Ray isn't competing with that now, nor ever. And like it's been mentioned several times over the past few pages, it ends up potentially much cheaper for console manufacturers, at least 100% assured in terms of not needing a $20/$30 Blu-Ray drive (this also reduces a vulnerable point of device failure by removing more moving parts); over time I'd expect that to easily manifest in the physical media production & packaging/distribution costs as well.

 

Just about done with theorizing what I think 10th-gen systems could bring, but I'm gonna put up some ideas of what I think Sony might do over the next few years first, and then Microsoft stuff for next few years. Helps with setting up what I'm thinking the 10th-gen systems will build off of.

[SONY]

[PLAYSTATION.FOLD]

>Portable-based PlayStation system capable of native play of PS4 games and streamed play of PS4 Pro ver. & PS5 games

>Built-in game controls with thumb sticks, 2x back touch sensors

>Three-part design; top part for screen, middle part for processing components, bottom part for controls

>Screen can be rotated to either horizontal or vertical (tate) positions as well as pivoted/tilted upwards 45 degrees on
the Z-axis. Screen is touch-capable and can automatically adjust settings for extended touch controls on detection
of controls deck portion's current in/out state

>Controls portion can be rotated along X/Y axis for left-handed or right-handed playing styles, or remote-style orientation
(one-handed play). Can be recessed along Y-axis to conceal/fold form factor, or pulled out along Y-axis to reveal controls.

>Built-in powerful megapixel camera

>Scaled version of PS4 spec design on 5nm process (in terms of raw performance and certain RDNA 2 features in PS5
not required here, such as USB Alt-Mode port modification for APU in regards to PSVR2)

>RDNA 2-based, with a few RDNA 3 features integrated into design, primarily some extended silicon support for SuperFidelity FX.

>In many ways a very scaled-down PS5 APU design with GCN silicon support for PS4 titles. This will allow for easy graphical
scaling of many PS5 titles that can potentially have PS.Fold ports, and creates a shared design platform to encourage cross-development
of unique games for both PS5 and PS.Fold

>Supports passthrough of image output to television via HDMI 2.0 port, streaming to smart TVs via installation
of companion app on smart TV and smart devices

>4x 2 GB 14 Gbps GDDR6 chips in PoP setup providing 224 GB/s bandwidth

>128 GB microSD at UHS-II interface speeds (variant could have 256 GB microSD capacity option)

>Single USB Type-C port; PS4 Dualshock 4 & PS5 DualSense controller-compatible

>Easy transfer of PS4 games to PS.Fold

>Will have a repurposed variant for smartphone line (top-end model in Xperia line)

>$299.99 MSRP

>Early/Mid-2023 Release

[PLAYSTATION 5 SLIM]

>Physically scaled down version of PS5

>5nm process

>Lower power consumption

>Slight clock boost (from 2.23 GHz GPU to 2.5 GHz)

>11.52 TF

>64 ROPs

>64 Shader Cores (per CU)

>144 TMUs

>8 prims/clock

>4 tri/clock

>160 Gpixels/sec

>360 Gtexels/sec

>20 Gpolys/sec culling

>10 Gpolys/sec rasterization

>Increase GPU L2$ size (8 MB vs PS5's 4 MB)

>Some tuned hardware changes to Primitive Shaders and Geometry Engine

>Fundamentally incorporates PS5 architecture elements for BC in an RDNA 4-derived design

>Changed memory: 16 GB GDDR6 as 8x 2 GB, 16 Gbps (64 GB/s) modules providing 512 GB/s on 256-bit bus

>Redesigned SSD; standardized M.2 form factor, 8 GB/s bandwidth, PCIe 5.0 with CXL integration, small
improvements/tweaks to various coprocessors, decompression bandwidth adjusted to 28 GB/s hardware cap.
Custom in-house SSD in M.2 form factor with 12-channel interface, but can be swapped out easily with
3P SSDs.

>Capacity increase to 1.536 TB

>Embedded 64 GB of NAND exclusive to OS for housing OS files, firmware patches etc. Interfaced to
I/O block as 2x NAND devices, 2 channels each. The OS *does* use the installed SSD; this private
pool is present for permanently storing OS and system files, updates etc. so when user swaps out SSDs
the contents can be easily reinstalled on the new drive.

>Digital-only

>Optional PS-branded disc drive module also available for users who still want
physical game support ($59.99 MSRP)

>$349.99 MSRP (digital version), $399.99 (disc module bundle; limited availability in select markets)

> $499.99 (digital version & PSVR 2 bundle)(2025 holiday bundle)

>Will be used to phase out original PS5 production by late 2025

>Late-2024 Release

[PLAYSTATION.STREAM]

>Soft replacement/product divergent of PS.Fold and PS5 Slim

>N5P process

>Built around technology features to be found in PlayStation 6

>Native spec capabilities on par with PS4 Pro (~ 4.2 TF), with feature sets and technologies based on
upcoming AMD Zen and RDNA generations (Zen 8, Zen 9; RDNA 7)

>Very small form factor, comparable to PS.Fold, just slightly larger

>No built-in screen or dedicated controls

>1 TB storage as custom USB slot-based "micro-storage" drive over USB Gen 4 2x2 (2.4 GB/s) interface

>Scaled-down version of PS5 Slim I/O block hardware (hardware decompression limit of 9.6 GB/s, reduced
I/O silicon performance for cost/heat/cooling/size considerations, etc.)

>8 GB HBM3 @ 5.2 Gbps, 128-bit I/O, 83.2 GB/s per module in 4-Hi stack for 332.8 GB/s on 512-bit bus

>Will be compatible with PSVR Gen 3 devices (to be introduced late 2027)

>2nd SKU with bundled Entry-level PSVR Gen 3 unit and controller planned for 2028 @ $299.99, to
fully replace PS.Fold with rebranding to PS.Fold-2

>$249.99 MSRP

>Mid/Late-2026 release

[MICROSOFT]

[SERIES.M]

>Streaming-focused small-box device for Gamepass & Xcloud on non-smart TVs
via connection through USB

>With smart TVs, can also connect wirelessly via WiFi 6

>Can be used as a wirelessly paired streaming client with Series X and S systems
for local game access and content sharing

>Extremely small form factor

>Compatible with existing Seagate expansion cards

>Includes 128 GB Seagate expansion card; replaceable

>2x USB Type-C ports (1 front, 1 rear)

>Compatible with XBO and Series controllers

>Comes with a custom media remote that has cost-effective buttons
and thumb sliders for physical button feedback, though any compatible
controller, keyboard/mouse (preferably wireless) etc. can be used

>$99.99 MSRP

>Strategically meant as replacement for Series S (Series S production
will be phased out by late 2024)

>Early-Fall 2023 release

[SERIES 17]

>Mid-gen upgrade for Series X

>RDNA 4-based

>52 CUs

>208 TMUs

>2.635 GHz clock

>80 ROPs

>64 Shader Cores (per CU)

>17.538 TF (44% increase over Series X)

>548 Gtexels/sec

>548 G.BVHI/sec

>210.8 Gpixels/sec

>21 Gpolys/sec culling

>10.54 Gpolys/sec rasterization

>Introduction of 4 modified ML-accelerated "mega cores" based on CDNA
architecture designs integrated into the Shader Arrays, one for each
Shader Array. Precursor to "Task Acceleration Engines" (10th-gen
systems)

>Backwards-compatible with Series X & S expansion cards

>Simple back M.2 port (NVMe Gen 5, PCIe 4.0 x4-CXL) for SSD expansion

>Comes with 1 TB SSD, 8 GB/s bandwidth

>Reworked I/O sub-system; hardware decompression limit increased to 24 GB/s

>Internal SSD and an expansion card can be used simultaneously

>Support for Wifi 6 included

>Added support for VR via included USB Gen 4 2x2 port in Alt Mode with
GPU/APU modification for support

>20 GB GDDR6+ (offshoot of GDDR6X; developed by Micron) as
10x 2 GB, 20 Gbps (80 GB/s) modules, for 800 GB/s on 320-bit bus

>Zen 4-based CPU with a few Zen 5 features mixed in

>Digital-only

>Approved 3P external disc drives will be supported via USB connection over
one of the USB Type-C ports

>Mid-2024 release

>$499.99 MSRP

>Replaces Series X at the high-end

[SERIES X-R]

>Revision for Series X

>Same specifications as Series X

>Lower power consumption

>5nm process

>No disc drive (digital-only)

>Smaller form factor

>Will be used to phase out Series X by late 2024 (Series 17 will be available by then)

>Will become the mid-end of Series family by late 2024

>$399.99 MSRP

>Late-2022 release

 

Sony never improved the performance of a slim version. They'll do that for the Pro version.