PS5 release date predicted...

[Pemalite]

EricHiggin said:

 

Pemalite said:

The Cell was 235.48mm2 and the GPU was even larger at 258mm2. The GPU was larger than the Cell and thus likely more expensive to manufacture and thus your assertion that the PS3 costs were high due to the cell is highly incorrect.
Both chips were fairly conservative in terms of size... But having two moderately sized chips is still expensive.
The Radeon x1900 XTX for instance was a *big* 352 mm2 at the same node and nVidia took it a step farther with the Geforce 8800 Ultra at a whopping 484mm2.
The Xbox 360's chips were smaller and thus cheaper to make than that and it was still a loss leader.
In the end, you are only agreeing with my point anyway, that the days of consoles taking losses on console hardware is over.
Sony is to broke to do it, Microsoft's shareholders aren't happy with it.

When I said cell was expensive I wasn't specifically talking about the actual cost to make each chip. I was looking at it from an overall point of view. The time and investment PS put in with IBM in the design and the manufacturing facility costs PS incurred to make it all happen. That is something PS really doesn't have to worry about with AMD because they take care of most of that and PS just pays for it. Having AMD and other companies taking care of the off the shelf, semi custom manufacturing and Foxconn assembling the console is a big reason why PS4 was able to come in at $399. PS has way less on their plate when it comes to PS4 hardware as a whole.

You do realise that the Cell was used for more than just the Playstation right? There is a reason why other companies threw their weight behind it, Sony didn't carry the entire burden of the Cell's development.
IBM invented allot of the I.P. (PowerPC) which companies like Apple (Mac) and Microsoft (Xbox) licensed in their own semi-custom designs.

Mercury Systems used it in it's Blade servers, which trickled into defense and military segments, IBM used it in Super Computers, pretty sure Toshiba threw it into Televisions...

Besides, you are just re-affirming my point. Sony and Microsoft are not going to take losses on console hardware. That includes everything, including R&D.

EricHiggin said:

 Why MS doesn't just subsidize PS into the ground I don't know. They have the means to do so and quite quickly. They would have the performance console market to themselves afterwards, unless Apple or Samsung decided to jump into the ring. I don't want MS to price/push PS out of console gaming, but everyone knows if they really wanted to, they could. Makes me wonder whether XB is mostly a warning to PS to stay away from their Windows/PC market.

Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft cannot just throw as much money as it see's fit to "fix" a problem.
It has to abide by various laws... And it needs to keep shareholders happy.

Competition is a good thing for the market, which is why I would prefer Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to be on equal footing... As that will benefit the consumer the most with lower prices and better products.

EricHiggin said:

I do think AMD would most certainly want to help PS and MS as much as possible because when AMD was hurting, PS and MS jumped on board and have been helping AMD financially to get going again, indirectly. 

AMD isn't a person. It is a business. - It doesn't care if other business's are "hurting" as it doesn't have feelings.
AMD is comprised of thousands of different people who all have different ideas and perspectives.

EricHiggin said:

They aren't the only reason, as Polaris for PC has been a pretty big hit for AMD so far, but treating PS and MS like their just another random customer, who can just take a hike if they don't like it, I don't see happening.

If nVidia or Intel gives Microsoft or Sony a better deal, you can bet your ass that they will choose them over AMD.

EricHiggin said:

It's not like PS and MS have many options to choose from for an x86 CPU and performance GPU, but with Ryzen about to take market share from Intel, leading to falling prices of Intel chips, and whispers of Intel potentially using AMD tech for their SOC's instead of Nvidia, there's nothing saying PS and MS may not look elsewhere in a pinch. AMD is the go to right now of course, but PS and MS aren't completely locked in if they don't want to be.

Ryzen isn't on the market, thus we have zero idea if it will take any relevent marketshare.
Even when AMD was beating Intel, Intel still controlled the majority of the market.

Plus AMD isn't releasing any high-end chipsets to go with Ryzen, Ryzen itself is also not going to be as fast or as efficient as Intel.
Ryzen has taken multiple cost-efficient design choices though to keep costs low.

And there is also some rumours (To be taken with pinches of salt) that Ryzen has a few bugs that may hinder performance in some cases, bugs in CPU's aren't uncommon, but ones that impact reliability and performance aren't a good sign. (Case in point: TLB in Phenom.)

As for x86. There is no requirement that forces Microsoft and Sony to use x86. ARM can already soundly beat Jaguar.