| Mr Puggsly said: I don't think the slightly thicker HDDs would be an issue for a home console. On a side note, maybe MS and Sony will use stats to determine if HDD or SSD is the best route. For example, if MS really wants people using the subscriptions like Xbox Live ("free games"), EA Access or Game Pass then a massive storage HDD is crucial. But if the average user is just playing a few titles that fits in a 1TB SSD, well moving to SSD makes sense. |
12mm hard drives will only not be an issue if the consoles are built to accommodate them. Right now you can't fit a 12mm HDD into a PS4.
A massive storage is never actually crucial. Its just a convenience feature. Say next gen games average in size from 30-120GB. You will still be able to fit around 8 to 30 games in a 1TB drive. And if support for external drives are there from day one, gamers can always buy an external drive and just copy games they aren't actively playing onto the external drive.
Point is there is a perfectly viable solution to not having "as much storage" as some gamers may want. But there isn't a solution to the limitations that putting in a HDD will bring from day one through the life of the console.
And its not just about loading times, its also about streaming in assets to avoid pop in or sectional loading. As these assets become bigger so will the bandwidth required to stream them in.
Pemalite said:
It's interesting you mention 2020 and prices continuing to drop... The same will hold true for mechanical drives as well you know.
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And dare I say.... it may even end up being cheaper for them to use nand flash storage than using a HDD. Lets take that 1TB size as an example. I have no doubt that by 2020 it shouldn't cost them as OEMs more than $40 for an M.2 sata QLC nand flash SSD. But then these are consoles we are talking about. What stops them from just all out skipping the M.2 drive and solder the storage modules directly onto the board instead. How much would that cost them then? Definately less than $40.
And while I get that consoles pretty much always go the cheapest route thats not always the case. Some times the value of a component with regards to the genera architecture of the system design will take precedence. Like using GDDR5 even though there were cheaper options. Or like using a vacum chamber even though they could have used a cheaper cooling solution ad just made it bigger.
I believe that if there is a single benefit to be gained from using nand flash storage then they would go with that instead. Especially when considerring future proofing the platform.
