this is probably the worst post i've seen in a long time.  Yeah, i'm sure Nintendo wouldn't want to make 10 billion + dollars again, that kinda sucked didn't it.  Most successful Nintendo console ever and most profitable console of all time.  It's cool though, lets just make up attach rates that are false and call it a day.

Official R&D numbers are garbage and completely worthless to look at. All companies pump as much into this category as they can as various governments give all sorts of tax benefits/credits when something is listed as R&D. So you will see anything from regularly maintenance to game development to new console research in this category and regardless of whether it is a huge or quiet year for the company it will always be a huge category.

That is just an arcticle based on a routine email for those on AMD's mailing list. I've already said that SCE went to AMD for a reference design but they took that reference design and used that to create a new custom APU chip orders of magnitude more powerful and supporting new technologies not found even in AMD's current APU chips.

How does the PS4 APU become 1200% (12x) more powerful than even most high end APUs released in 2013?

How is it that even AMD's newest announced APUs (not even released yet) are still outclassed by the PS4 by over 2x?

All this extra power & technologies (such as HSA, hUMA) are not found in AMD's retail lineup because AMD does not own the rights to manufacture them. SCE paid alot of money to license the reference design & then customize it. Nintendo would have to do the same. But they lack SCE's engineering background. SCE created a whole new architecture, the cell. Nintendo has never done anything quite to that magnitude so they would have to rely on AMD which would largely increase the R&D costs. So spending a few hundred million $ in a single year doesn't really support this happening. More likely Nintendo is taking an AMD retail APU increasing things like clock speed, memory, etc and ending up with something about as powerful as the xbone.

The GameCube was an amazing chip that outperformed Ken Kutaragi's ballyhooed PS2 for $100 less. The CELL was a design disaster which got Ken Kutaragi fired.

AMD does most of the work here really, they make GPUs, if Sony/Nintendo were so good at it they would make their own, but they don't and are well advised to not. 

The R&D cost of the chip is not really so much the issue. The R&D cost of SOFTWARE development is more the issue nowadays, sure you can have a 3 TFLOP machine. 4 TFLOP. Fuck. Make it 5 TFLOP. 

The real question is who the hell is going to develop for that and at point does pushing such a chip to its limits basically mean that a developer has to gamble with its future existence? 

The PS4 and XB1 GPUs from my understanding aren't even that different, MS was so butthurt from the RROD on the 360 that they played it probably too safe. It's not like Sony had some magic powder in their chip that only they could create. 

consoles take many years of development, the bulk of the effort and research involved in designing the NX would have happened in the last few years. it makes perfect since.

the MARKETING budget should go up for this year compared with the last few, not the R&D

That list above with profit/loss for MS/Sony & nintendo is very inaccurate as it compares different things for all 3 companies.

yes i understand that, but the last 4 years are relatively similar for R&D ($500-700m). I dont understand why its a noteworthy topic since it seems pretty standard.

"That is just an arcticle based on a routine email for those on AMD's mailing list. I've already said that SCE went to AMD for a reference design but they took that reference design and used that to create a new custom APU chip orders of magnitude more powerful and supporting new technologies not found even in AMD's current APU chips."

I really don't give a shit what you said, because you seem to be pulling everything directly from your ass.  I have a statement directly from AMD.  Do you have something more reliable to counter that?

The PS4 APU uses fairly standard Jaguar cores for the CPU, and the GPU is based on the Raedon series.  

"IHow does the PS4 APU become 1200% (12x) more powerful than even most high end APUs released in 2013?"

It doesn't.  AMD's figures for the PS4 (which Sony has used) puts the chip at 1.84 tflops.  The richland series, what was available at the time, is put at 744 gflops.  The difference is a little more than 2x not near 12x.  And that's just comparing the GPUs straight up and not accounting for the fact that the CPUs for richland are far more powerful.   

And of course, tflops is a, at best, poor stat for comparison as the architecture makes a huge difference.  The jaguar cores were not the best that AMD has, then or now.  They are one of the most energy efficient, which is why they were used.

"How is it that even AMD's newest announced APUs (not even released yet) are still outclassed by the PS4 by over 2x?"

I doubt they are because it was barely 2x more powerful than the richland series in in 2013.  But, APUs are generally designed to not be particularly strong. The APU is based on the Jaguar architecture which was not their best architecture at the time and now even less so.

Sony's APU is more powerful (debatably), because they're the only ones who have use for a powerful APU.  APUs are designed for ultra books, lightweight laptops, and for budget gamers. They are not made for high quality gaming. Those who are looking to really build a PC rig would opt for two discrete chips.  And even if they were opting for an APU, they probably wouldn't want such a GPU heavy design.  That makes sense for a dedicated gaming device, but it doesn't make sense for a PC that will likely be used for many other things as well.  And of course AMD makes discrete GPUs that trounce the PS4.

 AMD doesn't make more powerful APUs for the mass market because the mass market doesn't really need them... 

"All this extra power & technologies (such as HSA, hUMA) are not found in AMD's retail lineup because AMD does not own the rights to manufacture them. SCE paid alot of money to license the reference design & then customize it. Nintendo would have to do the same. But they lack SCE's engineering background. SCE created a whole new architecture, the cell. Nintendo has never done anything quite to that magnitude so they would have to rely on AMD which would largely increase the R&D costs. So spending a few hundred million $ in a single year doesn't really support this happening. More likely Nintendo is taking an AMD retail APU increasing things like clock speed, memory, etc and ending up with something about as powerful as the xbone."

Yeah, you just have no clue what you're talking about.  HSA is a technology that was developed jointly with many companies such as ARM, AMD, Samsung, Media Tech and qualcom.  There is actually an organization called the HSA foundation.  They list their key founders.  Sony is not on that list.  AMD's kaveri line off processors use HSA, as do many other products.  It's not a Sony thing.

http://www.hsafoundation.com/

As for hUMA that's another architecture the Kaveri line supports.  It's also something that has not been confirmed for PS4.   It was originally stated that the PS4 would use it, but AMD later said that was inaccurate.  The kabini line, which is the foundation for the PS4 and XBone processors, does not support Huma.  It is possible that the custom versions do somehow support it, but that has not been confirmed.

As for the cell, ye they created the cell.  It cost them 400 million.  About 1/7 of what you are claiming they spent to modify an existing AMD chip.  And... you just said that AMD can't use any of the special knowledge they gained from the development of the PS4 chip, and now you're saying it was Sony simply building on AMD's work... 

And Nintendo is very unliely to do anything like increase clockspeed.  The PS4 GPU clock speed is slightly lower than the XBox GPU, and is about standard for AMD APUs.  Its CPU on the other hand is clocked at a very low speed, about 1/3 of what is available on modern apus.  

Do you have anything to back up anything you're saying?  Do you have something show how much sony's gaming division spent on R&D?  Anything to show that PS4's APU is 12x more powerful than the APUs of the time?  Anything to show how much it would cost to develop a chip like the PS4's?  Anything to show the details of Sony and AMD's deal?  Because it seems like everything you've said is coming directly from your ass.  And while I don't mean to offend your ass, it doesn't seem like a very reliable source.

User was warned for this post ~ CGI-Quality

Well to be fair it just shows that in 2015 the marketing had fallen by quite a bit, and i suspect that it will grow this year.

If you look at those numbers you can see that the time-line also included Wii U release and lifetime (rip) so that would explain why marketing has decreased so much and RnD is lowering towards announcement of the NX.