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Forums - Gaming - Cost of UHD Blu Ray - Is MS subsidizing Xbone S, or is Sony just milking it?

mjk45 on 09 September 2016
JRPGfan said:
aLkaLiNE said:
What about neither? Is it not possible that Microsoft is making profit off the slim while Sony fit all they could in the box for $400? A >2x power increase is nothing to sneeze at.

^ this.

The chip inside the normal PS4 is bigger than the one in the Xbox One.

So MS probably save abit of $ on the cpu+gpu, and choose to include a 4k blu-ray drive as insentive for people to get the weaker console (xbox one slim instead of a stronger PS4).

Sony's new PS4 Pro chip (cpu+gpu) is probably alot more expensive than the normal PS4s, so in order to keep it at 399$, they couldnt afford to include the 4k Blu-ray drive as well if they wanted to hit that price point.

What confuses me is the fact that some people have stated that the PS4 bluray, (not sure about the Xbox One) is one that can be upgraded to UHD by way of a firmware upgrade , is this true ? , because if it is it opens up a whole new can of worms. 



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aLkaLiNE on 09 September 2016
mutantsushi said:
aLkaLiNE said:
What about neither? Is it not possible that Microsoft is making profit off the slim while Sony fit all they could in the box for $400? A >2x power increase is nothing to sneeze at.

Brah... The 1:1 comparison is Xbone Slim to PS4 Slim, who were cost equivalent in non-slim form, and are being sold for same price in Slim form.
Only difference being the UHD Blu Ray drive in Xbone Slim (HDR capability also being present in PS4 Slim and OG).
I'm not sneezing at PS4 NEO power increase, I'm trying to objectively address cost issue of UHD Blu Ray rather than using fantasy numbers.
Using the 1:1 comparison of Slim models is exactly to remove extraneous factors which change costs.
But the actual price difference of UHD Blu Ray drive would be the same whether installed in Slim or PS4 Neo, obviously.

Brah... If you're comparing ps4 slim to xb1s, they're the same price but one is smaller and more powerful while the other has a UHD blu Ray drive. So again, how about neither?



aLkaLiNE on 09 September 2016
mjk45 said:
JRPGfan said:

^ this.

The chip inside the normal PS4 is bigger than the one in the Xbox One.

So MS probably save abit of $ on the cpu+gpu, and choose to include a 4k blu-ray drive as insentive for people to get the weaker console (xbox one slim instead of a stronger PS4).

Sony's new PS4 Pro chip (cpu+gpu) is probably alot more expensive than the normal PS4s, so in order to keep it at 399$, they couldnt afford to include the 4k Blu-ray drive as well if they wanted to hit that price point.

What confuses me is the fact that some people have stated that the PS4 bluray, (not sure about the Xbox One) is one that can be upgraded to UHD by way of a firmware upgrade , is this true ? , because if it is it opens up a whole new can of worms. 

Yeah, so that's something we aren't yet sure about but I'm fairly confident that it's possible. Sony uses dual layer Blu Ray for games like Uncharted, and you could store a 4K movie on a triple layer blu Ray disc. I don't believe there's any extra hardware necessary to read a 3 or 4 layer disc and it's something that can be patched in but time will tell. A lot of people also thought HDR couldn't be patched in over on NeoGAF, like, literally, everyone except this one single dude and everyone thought he was crazy. Think his name is TBone51, he called it well over a year ago. The only thing I imagine holding Sony back if it IS possible, would be the other board members of the Blu Ray association that have UHD Blu Ray readers to sell. Again, we will see. The only thing Sony has formally mentioned about it is that there's a much larger market for streaming 4K than there is for disc based 4K where video content is concerned. Perhaps a partnership with Netflix featuring their 4K streaming could also potentially hold Sony off on enabling UHD? Again, time will tell. 



KLAMarine on 09 September 2016

Maybe both?



Pemalite on 09 September 2016
mutantsushi said:

Bandorr said:
Even if they thought it was a dying trend, they would have added it if it was just a simple "add a $15 dollar player".

Checking consumer prices for single unit orders of internal drives on New Egg, the difference for BDXL reader (not burner) seems to be $20 retail.
Pretty clear that actual cost is less than $15, probably around $5 difference.  And they didn't just simply add it in.

The cost is likely less than that.

There are plenty of PC OEM drives that just need a firmware update to enable 4k Blu Ray, so the costs of the 4k Blu Ray technology itself looks to be likely zero. You are probably just looking at higher prices between regular drives and 4k drives due to 4k being seen as a premium where extra money can be made.

Microsoft and Sony get to play with scales of economies here and also get to make special deals which side-steps all that garbage.

The main cost with the Xbox One S was actually the updated SoC, it cost development time to update the video blocks for things like HEVC support.




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mjk45 on 10 September 2016
aLkaLiNE said:
mjk45 said:

What confuses me is the fact that some people have stated that the PS4 bluray, (not sure about the Xbox One) is one that can be upgraded to UHD by way of a firmware upgrade , is this true ? , because if it is it opens up a whole new can of worms. 

Yeah, so that's something we aren't yet sure about but I'm fairly confident that it's possible. Sony uses dual layer Blu Ray for games like Uncharted, and you could store a 4K movie on a triple layer blu Ray disc. I don't believe there's any extra hardware necessary to read a 3 or 4 layer disc and it's something that can be patched in but time will tell. A lot of people also thought HDR couldn't be patched in over on NeoGAF, like, literally, everyone except this one single dude and everyone thought he was crazy. Think his name is TBone51, he called it well over a year ago. The only thing I imagine holding Sony back if it IS possible, would be the other board members of the Blu Ray association that have UHD Blu Ray readers to sell. Again, we will see. The only thing Sony has formally mentioned about it is that there's a much larger market for streaming 4K than there is for disc based 4K where video content is concerned. Perhaps a partnership with Netflix featuring their 4K streaming could also potentially hold Sony off on enabling UHD? Again, time will tell. 

Thanks for the info, btw didn't we have a member called  TBone on this site.



Research shows Video games  help make you smarter, so why am I an idiot

Guitarguy on 10 September 2016

Just fucken patch the god damn UHD player in Sony!!!



Ruler on 10 September 2016

Neither one does what you claim here, the PS4 Slim is still more powerful than the XBox One S while the S has 4K BluRay



Why i left PC gaming

 

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ABTR on 10 September 2016

4 times more powerfull ps4 1TB  price 399 -4 times less powerfull xbone slim 2TB price 399 but if you have ps4 and want a cheaper UHD player you can get the xbone slim 500gb for 299

is all about price if PS4PRO cost 499 now we don't talk about we are UHD player fans and movies but is to expencive for some better fps and visuals

I mean come on our main problem here is how we can find 65'' 4k HDR tv's in a good price :)  
Also you can read this Interview From Jim Ryan about everything

4k movie discs is not many out there and streaming service add more popular series on 4k  

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/08/playstation-4-pro-sonys-jim-ryan-on-removing-blu-ray-and-the-fut/



 

 

pray4mojo on 10 September 2016

In my opinion, Sony is doing what the market leader always does. They raised the price of their online service, despite it still not being as dependable as Xbox Live. Why? Because they're the market leader and, what the hell are you gonna do? Go buy an Xbox One? Of course you won't! They're doing the same thing here. They could have put UHD in the thing but why do that? From a business point of view, they've got everyone by the balls. They know it won't matter.

This is exactly the sort of stuff Microsoft pulled last generation because they were beating Sony. If you want better things for the consumer, you have to root against domination. If the PS4 and Xbox One were neck and neck? You would have seen UHD... I have no doubts about it.