nightsurge said:
Let's see what was forgot:
Not to mention I feel like their APU estimate is way off. The cheapest AMD retail CPU for 8 cores is $160 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961) and that's not even an APU! Meaning that price does not even include the GPU part. Considering the most expensive APU is $130 retail with only a quad-core and HD 7000 series graphics, I am thinking that an 8-core APU with HD 7000 graphics of decent power would be minimum 120-130 even after the Sony bulk discount. Granted this price will shrink massively over the first 3 years, as will all parts, but I think a more accurate estimated total would be:
Total: ~$500-615Even if you take out their OTHER $25-35 since that may have covered some of the stuff I added, that leaves it at $475-580. Granted, this is no where near as bad as the PS3's initial costs, but Sony will initially have to take a loss if they want a $400-450 price point, or launch at $500 or more again. |
The OP article was already overestimating HDD cost, entry level ones can be found at little more than $40 RETAIL price. The MoBo can be cheaper than cheap general purpose ones we commonly buy, as it has to be fitted with a single set of standard components without expansion slots (except maybe one more RAM slot for possible last minute RAM size increase and/or to expand it for devkits), PSEye can be currently sold at RETAIL for ~50 Euros in Europe without bundled game, and an updated PSEye won't be too expensive in a few months, as the tech necessary is already existent and cheap. About RAM price, it should drop quite quickly as usual from current price.
About CPU price, you made the wrong comparison: current AMD 8 cores are high end FX versions, using heavyweight cores, while both XB720 and PS4's APUs will use lightweight "Jaguar" cores. To make an example, IBM and other POWER partners already make POWER 7 multicores with 16 or even 32 lightweight cores cheap and fresh enough to be used in routers and gateways. The GPU will be mid-range, not high-end (as all the streamlining and HW standardisation done in consoles allow mid-range chips to give higher performances than on general purpose, but bloated PCs with wide variety of configuations that allow far lesser optimization). Also the production cost estimate for DualShock4 is quite high.
But in the end yes, including all the things missing in GAF / Beyond3D estimate the costs could exceed $400 minimum, but not so much and closer to $400 than to $500.
Last but not least, the later PS4 will launch, the cheaper its costs for the same HW.
