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Intrinsic on 11 February 2019
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Honestly, talking up 4TB 2.5 inch HDDs is just as ridiculous as talking up 1TB SSDs.

No, it isn't.

Right now on amazon the cheapest 4TB HDD there is $118.

Doesn't matter. This is mainly about storage and such a hit is nothing like what you'd see from a GPU or RAM. Plus, the option to upgrade later on will also be present. 2TB HDDs (which are dirt cheap) in both machines at launch isn't unrealistic.

The Cheapest 1TB SSD is $108.

Irrelevant. SSDs cost more and will yield less storage in the long run for comparable prices.

So what I am saying stands.

Stand by it, as I will do the same.

If you consider that OEM pricing will be significantly lower than retail pricing then it will cost them about the same or less in 2020 for a 1TB SSD as it would cost them for a 4TB HDD.

Again, irrelevant. Getting an SSD will simply be about speed, but you want more storage as we head towards a stricter digital future. A 2TB HDD is the the most likely option with 4TB (since you and others are hung up on the ceiling I predicted) being the highest case (this should have been obvious, but alas, here we are).

And with regards to the rest of the tech in the system its really not that complicated.

No one claimed it was and I have always said it is a fairly easy concept to grasp.

Be it 16GB or 20GB of available RAM the issue remains... a 2.5 inch sata drive that will peak at around 150MB/s (and actually less in the real world) is just going to be to slow. Look at the load times now with 5GB systems then imagine how they will be with at least 3 times more RAM. They are going to have to do something about that or not we will be seeing games with like 4 minute plus loading screens.

16GB of G6 won't be an issue. That plus 4GB of LPDDR4 isn't an unrealistic scenario.

Only two ways to do that. SSD or HDD + embedded nand flash cache. So basically which ever solution is cheaper and less complicated to implement.

As for RAM, again this is simple. As of 2017 the price of 1GB of GDDR5 was $23 and 1GB of GDDR6 was $26. Again not OEM pricing. The main takeaway here isn't the cost but how similar the prices are; basically GDDR6 ram will cost around 10-20% more than whatever GDDR5 would have cost. At this point its a matter of if they are going for 8 chips of GDDR6 (ala PS4) or 12 chips (XB1X) resulting in 16GB or 24GB respectively. When you lok at it that way it doesn't sound s crazy anymore does it? 32GB is and was always crazy though.

When I look at RAM, it will always be crazy to expect more than you should. All else is largely moot.


 My take.

Fair enough......

For the record My real take on storage isn't even an SSD. I believe it will be some sort of combination solution. like 256GB embedded nand flash and a 2TB upgradeable HDD. You can get a 240GB SSD now for under $30. Means sony and MS can et 240GB worth of nand flash for under $10. 

I just don't see them using only a HDD. And using the above mentioned method ensures that every console has faster nand flash in them and devs can build their games around that knowledge.

 

Robert_Downey_Jr. said: 

I think the one place they would skimp especially at the start would be the HDD.  It can always be upgraded either by the user or by them when the system parts become cheaper down the road.  You can always delete games and install others.  It's one thing that doesn't give them an edge in power and very few people will call a deal breaker so it makes the most sense to skimp there.  I only ask that they make it easy to swap out so those of us that want more room can throw something UUUUUGE in there.

The thing about the HDD is nt even the amount f it that is there. They honestly can get away with anything above 1TB and it won't be the end of the world.

The issue with storage is its speed. Every generation games are  designed primarily for hardware found in consoles. Thats where the bulk f the sales come frm. So consoles basically set the minimum requirements. 

If you give devs 16GB - 20GB of RAM you can bet your last dollar they will find a way to run out of it. If the current transfer speeds of HDDs is what we are taking into next gen can you imagine how long the load times will be? What about streaming in data? And whatever is in the console on day one sets the tone for the next 7 years.

If one cnsle ships with either a cache drive +HDD r just an SSD and the other ships with your good old HDD and nothing else....... trust me when I say one will be better than the other. Noticeably better. 

Last edited by Intrinsic - on 11 February 2019