I didn't mean $499 would be without a sub. I should have been more clear. I think even $499 would require a reasonable sub. $449 would require SNY to get more generous then they have been. Maybe they would, maybe not, but $399 seems crazy to me right now.

If MS can, and does decide to make XBSX $50 more than PS5 no matter what, then SNY might as well set their price at $499. Above that already get's MS into minor trouble. At $399 that could mean a $449 XBSX, and who wouldn't pay that much for it? $549 though? Also, if Lockhart exists, and is less than $399, then a $499 PS5 makes Lockhart look really weak and questionable to those who can afford to wait to save up for a PS5 (or buy a PS4 or Pro instead).

If the BOM that Forbes estimated was correct (~$450), then $499 should be break even, maybe a tiny profit.  Sony has always sold at a loss.  $449 should be the max we should expect.  Unless MS does price theirs at $599, then they may figure they can get away with a $499 price.  Remember, Sony took at $200+ loss when they felt they had to for the PS3.  I don't think a ~$100 loss is completely out of the question.  Not when this gen is very important to the future of their company.

And MS is not going to try to beat Sony or 100% be only more than them by $50.  Xbox is not a huge pillar in their company.  Satya Nadella does see it as a way to break into streaming, which is his background.  But, they are not in the business of losing millions/billions on HW, again.  If the XBX costs $100 more to make than the PS5, expect it to cost $100-$150 more than the PS5.  This is why the Lockhart existed to begin with.  Series X was to beat Sony with power, but definitely not price.  Lockhart was to beat it with price, definitely not power.  We'll have to see if they actually release the Lockhart, given some of the leaks that some devs aren't exactly excited with having to develop on it if they want to make a XBX game.

NVME?

And that's Numbah 5 I believe?

It's not just loading games or loading screens that was interesting about Sony's SSD approach, but how you can build games when large amounts of data can be loaded in instantaneously. Digital Foundry went over this and seem the most interested in this feature. 

https://youtu.be/4higSVRZlkA?t=1076

Essentially, from my understanding level design in video games have always been held back by how quickly assets can load. If it takes you one second to turn around, the stage can only be designed in a way that it has to be able to load in everything neccesary in one second. Hence why level designers put up walls, and shape corridors, streets etc with this in mind. You didn't necessarily take a right turn there because it made the most sense from a design perspective, but rather the limitations of hardware.
PS5's SSD would seemingly eliminate the need to design games with this limitation in mind. And that's very interesting.

Something I just read on a few sites said that SmartShift only works in laptops with separate AMD CPU and GPU. PS5 has SmartShift, so does that mean it's not a monolithic APU? SNY's slides showed a layout much like how AMD's slides do, with separate CPU and GPU and I/O die, which is how Zen 2 is laid out (minus the GPU die). AMD also showed they were working on infinity fabric that allowed for the CPU and GPU to operate together, but for servers. Could PS5 be using a consumer form of this, and could that be cheaper? The smaller chiplets certainly should be a lot cheaper than a large APU, and it would partially explain the much higher GPU clocks as well.

I read your last reply wrong. I thought you said MS would try and keep XBSX close to PS5 cost, but you said it's own costs. Oops. Even if both have monolithic APU's, then XBSX's should cost a lot more. Though the PS5 SSD should cost a bit more than XBSX's, even with slightly less storage space. XBSX also doesn't sound like it's audio portion will cost as much as PS5's either. It's hard to say. While I don't think they'll be the same price, I don't see more than a $100 difference at most. SNY really doesn't like $50 launch pricing. That's why $499 for PS5 and $549-$599 for XBSX make more sense to me. I think that would work better than most may think for PS5. XBSX may only be another $50, but it would be over that $500 mark and that will immediately turn some people off. Unless MS sets the price at $499, then PS has to decide what they want to do, and if they can afford it, they may just bite the bullet and go with the tried and true $399. PS5 specs at $399 would destroy PS4 launch sales, if they aren't hampered by covid.

I read that as well, and agree that it is interesting. But again this thread likely overstates the distinction. It wouldn't be enough that Sony can do that. It would have to be the case the the MS console cannot do that. I consider it unlikely that that will be the case, as MS was surely mindful of this in designing its console with two different types of RAM.

Add to that, even in the worst case where the PS5 can somehow achieve this and the Xbox can not, it would be limited to a few very advanced PS5 games, and even then whats rendered on screen would look worse than the most advanced Xbox games - try marketing that!

Next gen is sounding a lot like SNES vs Mega Drive to me.

One side has the power, the other has the speed.

Will XSX arm muscle beat up Sony?

Or will PS5 leg speed run rounds around Microsoft?

Will you Play With Power? Or will you be Blasting throught your games?

What will be games be focused on? What future we are entering into?

And most importantly, are you going to LoD next gen?

Let the war begin!