Should Sony pull a PS5 release to compete with Scorpio?

[WC4Life]

KBG29 said:
Just a reality check for those that think a PS5 in 2019 is going to be truly next gen.

The first thing you have to know is that true leaps in console capability only come with shrinks to technology. You can get refinment and improved performance from the same tech over time, but nothing beats a shrink in the tech itself.

In this current generation we had the PS4 and the XBO launch with 28nm Planar APU's, and now we have PS4 Pro launching with a 14nm FinFET APU. The Pro also benefited from three refinments to the Gaphics Core Next (GCN) tech from AMD, which in hand with the shink in chip size gave it a decent boost, but nothing that is blowing people away.

Now, lets look at the power consumption of the PS4 vs the PS4 Pro. We don't have final actual use test, but we do know the OG PS4 launched with a 250W powersupply, and the PS4 Pro has a 310W power suppply. So the PS4 Pro has a small more energy effiecient chip, based on a more a GPU desing with higher effeciency per Watt, and it is still drawing enough power to require a 60W bigger power supply that the OG PS4.

Looking at the road map to future AMD tech you will see this kind of leap in fabrication size is not going to happen again. We skipped 20nm Planar which was what the original slim PS4 was supposed to be based on, and ended up all the way down on 14nm FinFET due to manufacting problems with that 20nm Planar process.

The next thing in line, and quite possibly where the XBO will be made is on 10nm FinFET and based on AMD Vega. This is the only way the will pull of 6TFLOPs and stay in the confinments of a console. Again, though, the difference between the Pro and Scorpio, will only be 30%. That means something like 1440p - 4k on the Pro and 1800p -4k on the scorpio.

Now if we look ahead to 2019, we see that the plan is for AMD to move to 7nm FinFET, and a GPU code named Navi. This GPU in itself will not be a massive improvement over the Pro and the Scorpio, but will see a decent boost due to being paired with "next gen memory" the revision after HBM2. This is what your so called PS5 would be based on, however, AMD only expects the leap between the PS4 Pro's Polaris GPU tech and the Navi GPU to be about as big as the jump from, PS4 to PS4 Pro.

So, basically, if PS5 comes out in 2019, the best we can expect from a console with a 300W power supply at $399.99 is about 10TFLOPs. That is enough to do a very clean 4K with new bells and whistles, but it will not fundamentaly change the way a game is made. These will still be the same game as you could get on the OG PS4 at 1080p. Perhapps, that will be enough for Sony, and the cadence for new conmsoles will be every three years, only time will tell. IF that is the case though, I fully expect major disapointment when PS5 is revealed, as most people will be let down, because theyare living on unrealistic expectations.

This is a really good post and resonates with my own beliefs of how the console industry will move forward. A realistic take on how the tech will advance and what will be the limits of PS5/X2 consoles unless a breakthrough is made. Graphically, there exists a generational step and that is ray-tracing. It will divide graphics simply to, before ray-tracing and after ray-tracing. I don't believe PS5 will be able to do ray-tracing and for the rest of this post I make that assumption.

When I read these forums, all I see is people clinging to the word generation time and time again. Those days are over, PS4 to PS5 will be nowhere near the same as PS1 to PS2, or some other truly generational leap in the past. Generational in the sense that it actually mattered, it made a difference in real world terms and not just in paper.

Think how the actual games changed in the past and how games will change in the future when this so called generation leap happens.

Let's look at PS1 and the jump to PS2. Games like Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, these games simply couldn't be done on the PS1. If they had made PS1 versions, those games would have looked unrecognizable, like a totally different game from the PS2 version.

Now think about PS4, PS4Pro and PS5. I think it is safe to say, there will be a Call of Duty game which will release for both PS4 and PS5, let's use that as our imaginary example. PS5 Cod will look significantly better than the PS4 version but it will still be very much the same game in every sense. But then you go on and compare PS5 CoD to PS4Pro and it is guaranteed the differences will be a lot smaller. The difference between PS5 and PS4 could be loosely called generational compared to the past. Following this logic, how could PS5 and PS4Pro difference be called generational? How could this scenario be called nothing else than BLURRING THE GENERATIONS?

And this is only comparing the Playstation family. What will be the difference between PS5 and Scorpio. Even smaller. And this is why it doesn't matter Scorpio is releasing late to this generation. Scorpio will be very capable and comparable even when PS5 gets released and the consumer will have to make a choice between $249 Scorpio or $399 PS5. The price difference can be bigger or smaller, what will matter is the value proposition and it is safe to assume that it will be competitive.

Then there are the games. A lot of people sound like the generations set the games apart but that is not true anymore. It was like that in the past but look at our current console market. For this generation cross-gen keeps going and going, you could call that blurring of the generations too. There was cross-gen games like  Titanfall, Watch Dogs, Call of Duty, Sports Games, Metal Gear Solid V, Dragon Age and many more. Point is, the majority of games released only for PS4/X1 could be made for PS3/X360 also but the publishers let it go because it was not financially viable anymore. Look at Japanese publishers, they already have the PS3 version made but still won't bring it to west, it's just not financially viable. And this is exactly how it will play out for the majority of games in the future. PS4/X1, PS4Pro/Scorpio, PS5/X2...etc. versions will be dropped out when it is not financially viable anymore. This is the natural way how things work. It's not the generations that dictate this but hard cold cash.

In the end, there will be Sony consoles, Microsoft consoles, corporation X consoles, the consumer goes to retail and buys a SKU which suits his needs, whether it is the less or more powerful SKU does not matter, the consumer will be guaranteed to get games support for X-years. Yes, looking at the spec sheets, you will be able to divide consoles by generation but it will not translate to real world terms. This is the generationless approach. No, it will not happen overnight, it will not be like flip-a-switch, it will take time but it will get there slowly.

It has already started.