Next Gen Tech (NGT): STORAGE

[Pemalite]

EricHiggin said:

Depends on what that next gen tech and price is exactly in 2020. If you take into account that all we got at the PS4 launch was 500GB of mass storage, there is no reason to assume that PS or XB will shoot for 4TB-8TB of mass storage next gen. XB1X is supposed to be a 4k machine and they went for HDD speed not storage space.

If a 1TB or 2TB SSD was available in time for that 2020 launch, at a reasonable price that fit the budget, do to a mass manufacturing contract with PS (and/or XB), I see no reason why PS/XB wouldn't use it. Being able to slap SSD on the specs is easy and gives the console more street cred right off the bat. If PS really cared about storage space, they would have used a 3.5" 1TB HDD at launch, which would have cost less per HDD than the 2.5" they used, but it didn't fit the console shell form factor. Personally I think 1TB or 2TB would be skimping on the storage space next gen, but I can see PS doing it.

Just another reason why I initially said guessing what the mass storage solution is going to be next gen, is a really tricky one right now. It makes for good discussion because the possiblities are many, but we know so little right now that coming up with a reasonable guess is quite unlikely.

Well. When the Playstation 4 launched, 500GB mechanical disks were some of the cheapest storage solutions available.
Shift from 2013 to 2017, where have hard drives gone? 1 Terabyte seems to have repalced the 500GB drives as the sweet spot in terms of cost efficiency.
By 2020? At this rate we might be looking at 2 Terabytes of mechanical storage, provided there are no component shortages/disasters that blow that out.

SSD's though, still aren't cheap enough. An SSD fitting in the same cost-range as a 1 Terabyte drive of $79 AUD would net you 120/128GB today.
Of course we can still add more stacked layers to NAND chips and fabricate them at smaller geometry sizes, but that is still asking for a 5x - 10x fold increase in capacities for the same price in just a few years. - I just don't see it happening.

And that is provided there are no NAND shortages... Which happens all the time, especially prior to big product launches like the iPhone.