Intrinsic said:
Here is the thing about a slim. When manufacturing of the apu and memory chips shift to 20nm, they can basically half the size of the apu and use only 8 instead of 16 memory chips. they can also put a much smaller cooling unit since the smaller apu draws less power. basically, the size of the board can literally be cut in half. It makes less sense putting a smaller board, smaller PSU and smaller fan into an oversized shell. Plastic costs money too you know? and packaging and shipping costs for a smaller console saves a lot of money too. Sony doesn't make the slims cause its cool, they make them cause it saves them money. |
One of the biggest savings also arises from customized, proprietary boards. There are significant gains to be made by replacing modular components with monolithic ones. Manufacturers traditionally go through a learning by doing process that allows to optimize and relaunch 6 months, 1 year, etc. down the line. Having gone through this process several times myself, I've actually experienced this and the improvements you cited earlier.
There's a lot of money to be saved/made from a slim PS4.
