| Pemalite said: Seems the cadence has already been set. |
Microsoft did a short gen with the OG Xbox (one performance level), then a long gen with the 360 (one performance level, even though that generation was practically *crying* out for "pro" consoles!), and then a long gen with the Xbox One (technically three, but mainly two performance levels). So I don't see any commonality from one generation to the next, so what would suggest they'll follow suit this gen with any of those three previous examples. Especially because this cycle they've launched with two performance levels for the first time?
There doesn't need to be a market for it. It's what is called a "Halo" product. |
I'm familiar with "halo" and "image-maker" products, but they make more sense to me in the PC space where games have user-selectable quality levels, than on console where there's a tendency for developers offer limited end-user customization of the experience. Because of this, even a "halo" product has to be expected to sell well enough to make developers want to bother optimizing for it.
5 and 3nm will reduce cost, you will get more chips per wafer. - TSMC will simply charge more until there is less competition for the node. Supply/Demand. They are abstracting and using virtualization for the most part, not emulating the Xbox One, except for a few key hardware features. (Like Xbox 360 texture formats as the Series X doesn't have hardware support, but the Xbox One does.) |
From the big Series S interview on Eurogamer:
"To put that into perspective, Xbox 360 launched with individual CPU and GPUs, both fabricated at 90nm. By the generation's end, those two components had been combined into a single chip, delivering a significant cost reduction in its own right, and they were also delivered using a much smaller process (possibly as low as 32nm on the final model). Between launch and the end of the 360's lifecycle, the machine had actually transitioned through several fabrication nodes. Its successor - Xbox One - saw its processor revised just once, down from 28nm to 16nm FinFET. Cost reduction opportunities were thin on the ground for this generation and will be even more constricted going forward.
"Moore's Law is certainly not dead! Moore's Law is continuing and we have a good path to 5nm and 3nm, and those are going to bring improved performance and good power," enthuses Goossen. "What they're not bringing any more is a good cost reduction cost per transistor - and so this has foundational impacts to console development, because now we'll get cost reductions, but they're slowing down and it won't be nearly the magnitudes that we've seen before"."
So Microsoft is predicting that cost reductions per transistor from new processes will be smaller than what we saw with the Xbox One, which itself was smaller than what we saw with the Xbox 360. That's the point. So those that saw we'll see dramatic price reductions in consoles this gen may not have their expectations met.
