Global Hardware 14 July 2018

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Lawlight said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

Agree. Not to mention that rushing a price cut intead of doing it when originally planned considering a longer term and wider scope, is always seen as a sign of weakness. NS is strong and getting stronger, but Sony needs to launch PS5 not earlier than in 2020 if it wants it to be not just powerful and cheap, but also with the possibility to include a hybrid version if the gamers and devs, thanks to Ninty showing the way, will make clear they absolutely want it (while GPU cores of a hybrid can scale down, at least when undocked, the CPU must provide almost the same computing power, only some optional services can be disabled when undocked, so tech will need to advance enough to produce mobile CPU cores that deliver a large enough performance leap from PS4 even on the home version, and this, if even possible, wouldn't be cheap earlier than 2020), so Sony needs to play the price cut card with an at least two years plan in mind. Also, Sony doesn't want a price war with Ninty, for at least three reasons, first, it would hurt profits, second, competing in three makes Microsoft less dangerous and third, Ninty, despite blunders like Wii U, keeps on showing it can still show the way to go in console gaming, and maybe this time more than ever, as finding a way portables can survive mobile attack is a thing that many didn't consider possible, until Ninty showed it.

I don’t think anyone but Nintendo is interesting in handheld gaming. It is in their interest to keep it alive or else they lose Japan which accounts for 25% of their hardware sales.

But just like the hybrid brilliantly solves Ninty problem to keep portables as healthy as possible injecting in them some additional selling power from home consoles, and even more from being, well, a hybrid, it could also solve MS and Sony problem of not being even remotely as good as Ninty to understand the portable market and so, after PSP, not having anymore a portable market with potential sales that could justify production by itself, but that could still be an attractive supplement to sales of home consoles. A hybrid is a brilliant idea, because while currently it can work well for a mainly portable-focused console maker like Nintento, in two or three years CPU tech advancements will make it viable also for mainly home console ones.