thismeintiel said:
"In fact, the PS1 and PS2 had better sales, 21M and 20M respectively, the years before they launched their successors" It has nothing to do with decline, though, a starting decline can single to them it is time to move on. It has to do with striking while you are still hot. I mean, if we use your logic, Sony should not have launched the PS2 and PS3 when they did. And PS+ really changes nothing. Sure, its extra revenue, but Sony can lose those customers just as fast as they gained them. And if they stall for too long, with 2013/14 customers wanting new, more powerful HW, and someone comes out with a better product, they are more likely to lose some. Just like people who claimed the Gamerscores and "superior" Live would keep 360 owners with MS.
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Again, you are still talking about the PS2/3 with total disregard of the context wof their launch. With the PS2 seag had already released the dreamcast a year prior and nintendo were due to release the gamecube in the same year sony released the PS2. Sony couldn't just sit on their laurels and wait it out. With the PS3 again, in this case MS had already released their console a year earlier too. You are looking at sales but thats the wrong thing to look at unless they are really bad.
In actuality, theer isn't actually a precedent of launching first by sony ever. If you really think about it. PS1 a year after the saturn, PS2 a year after the dreamcast, PS3 a year afetr the 360, PS4 a year afetr the wiiU. Waiting a year isn't stalling for too long, cause even though they released the PS3 a year late it didn't stop them from still beating the 360 in the end, even though the PS3 was ridiculously more expensive at launch. And just look at the NS, go tell them they should have launched in 2013 as opposed to 2017 after looking at them eating into the XB1s lead.
thismeintiel said:
And I'm not talking about them in a vacuum. Sony has competition, right now. MS is going to give it one hell of a push next gen, at least at the start, to try to win their customers back. And that could include dropping out of this gen early to get a headstart, just like they did last gen. And you are very wrong if you think they can just watch the XB2 conference and change their HW on the fly. They most likely already have the final PS5 HW decided upon. To just change it would require extra months of designing, development, and testing. This would give the XB2 about a year head start, as Sony is going to avoid a RROD scenario at all cost. It's also not how they work. They didn't change the Pro, just because the X was more powerful, nor any of their other systems. They aren't going to change the PS5 according to the XB2, either.
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You are basing all you are saying on a lot of ifs....... and this isn't about changing theire hardware on the fly, they can however make modiciations to an already confirmed design. Like increase Ram, increase clocks as a result of better and more expensive cooling...etc. Those kinda modifications won't take a year to implement, just look at the XB1 launch, between its E3 reveal and launch clock speeds went up. Thats a less than 5 month window.
The point though is that sony simply doesn't have to go first. Hell sony allowing MS going first and pushing a media campaign of how they will be making the "worlds most powerful console" will actually put a damper on whatever MS is doing.
They didn't change the Pro cause they didn't need to. They already had this gen in the bag. Sony would even prefer coming a year after XB2 if it would mean they won't release day and date and be the weaker console. Can you imagine what MS would do with that kinda marketing leverage?
thismeintiel said:
No, he's completely wrong. 7nm is going to be ready to sample later this year. Now, supposedly that tech is not going to be used in creating a Vega GPU for the masses. It's starting out in the Radeon Instinct, which is supposed to compete with Intel's Tesla line. Though, it will be used in next year's Navi. Considering Sony is working closely with AMD on their next GPU, which has been rumored to be based on some Navi work, but not exactly a Navi GPU, I wouldn't be surprised to see 7nm used on somewhat of a hybrid, like the one used in the Pro.
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You know what a sample is right? And even when tehey go into volume production you know thats mostly only going to be in tehir GPUs right? You know why? We can argue this down from now till we both turn purple, but by next year 7nm chips won't be mature enough to go into consoles. Unless sony/MS are willing to bite a bullet on costs. Or gimp some otrher area of the hardware to accomodate the higher costs of their APUs due to poor yeilds.
thismeintiel said:
Of course, there is really nothing stopping Sony from a larger die, which is used in the Vega 64 (~12.5 Tflops) currently, then switching to 7nm, if it isn't ready. Sure, it'll cost them more initially, and require more power, but Sony isn't exactly opposed to losing money early on when they know they will make it back with SW sales. The Pro also shows they are up for making a more power hungry device. Again, if 7nm isn't read for them in mid-2019.
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If you don't know why sony cant/won't/shouldn't do that, then I really must have been wasting my time all this time.
Have any idea how big a die an APU with a Zen+ CPU and Vega 64 GPU will be? have any idea how big the console would be? What kinda cooling you would need for that? How much something like that will cost????
And even worse, do you realize that if they did that and made your 12.5TF GPU using a vega 64 chip in an APU (going discreete is even worse), all MS has to do is wait one year, take pretty much the exact APU they have now powering the XB1X, build it out in 7nm, doubling the GPU cores, slapping in a zen CPU and increase clocks all round and they would end up with at least a 15TF GPU for a fraction of the cost that it would be costing sony to make a 12.5TF system?
