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chakkra on 19 April 2021
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WoodenPints said:
Ryuu96 said:

Knew there was a thread for this: https://www.resetera.com/threads/how-come-sony-are-able-manufacture-more-ps5s-vs-what-microsoft-is-doing-with-their-xbox-series-consoles.411192/ Basically...

- Microsoft waited for RDNA 2 features which meant they started manufacturing around Summer time (I think July?), Sony started around May.

- Microsoft is having to make 2 chips, Sony only has to make 1.

- Xbox Series X SoC is larger which means Sony can manufacture more systems per wafer than Microsoft can.

- Microsoft is likely underestimating demand, not a surprise with how last gen went, Sony in Q4 purchased 80k wafer from AMD but Xbox only purchased 40k. Sony has likely planned more demand than Xbox has (Sony always said their goal was to beat PS4 but Series X/S didn't even have Halo Infinite at launch so I imagine Microsoft set expectations down).

- Sony's manufacturing is simply better than Microsoft's, Sony has their own factories, one which is near fully automated and can make a Playstation console every 30 seconds, I'm not even sure if Microsoft has their own manufacturing factories or if they just rely on 3rd parties.

- They're also manufacturing for Azure server blades, each blade currently uses 4 Xbox One S per server blade.

1 Chassis holds 24 Server Blades, 1 Rack holds 3-4 Chassis, that'd be 384 Series X per rack but Azure data centres are massive so I don't have a clue how many racks are in a data centre. Having said that, 4 Series X per server blade is overkill, I do not think it will be that, it'll probably be 1 or 2 at most, actually I think it would be 1 so that'd only be 96 Series X per Rack but again Idk how many racks they have.

I also would expect Microsoft low-key would rather whatever benefits Azure to receive priority.

So it's a combination of a lot of factors, with all that, don't expect Xbox to catch up to Sony anytime soon and by that happens it'll already be too late and Sony will have a decent lead and zoom off again, but I don't think it'll bother Microsoft all too much.

That is quite a difference in volume and considering how far in advance the wafers are usually bought then it sounds like Xbox will only be able to produce half as many consoles for the next 1-2 years.

I actually think it is more a matter of planning. I'm not going to pretend that I know how these fabrication processes work, but I think it is safe to assume that these companies have to order their parts within a set time-frame. I mean, if you want 10 million units (of any product) to be manufactured within a year then a certain amount of production lines need to be set up to achieve that goal (factories, supplies, hiring the number of employees needed to do the job, etc, etc).

I think MS just severely underestimated the number of units they were going to need to ship for the first year. I'm willing to bet they assumed the first year was going to be similar to Xone's first year and just went from there. And yes, under normal circumstances they probably would have been able to ramp up production by now, but they have been caught with their pants down by the shortage situation.