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PS4K information (~2x GPU power w/ clock+, new CPU, price, tent. Q1 2017)

To be fair if they are dropping price this holiday retail wouldn't know about it yet. FOR SURE. They don't even tell partners that kind of thing this far out, because frankly Sony themselves still may not know. Just because they aren't talking about it doesn't mean a price drop on the original model can't happen.

It really does though. There is no way sony launches with a 200 dollar price gap, I would bet hard on that.
 
He's saying the OG will stay 399, which means the new one will be 499 by virtue of HAVING to be more expensive. The alternative was to drop the price on the old one and launch 4k at 399 in it's place.

He hinted that the price drop was being put off over the holiday period - get more money when people are in the buying mood.

That said, I'd find it odd to have two models on the shelf that are fairly far apart spec wise, but only $100 difference in price. Why would any buy an OG PS4? Or are they using an higher OG PS4 price to push PS4.5 sales over the holiday period, and then dropping the price for those waiting for a more affordable PS4 after the holiday period?
 
It really does though. There is no way sony launches with a 200 dollar price gap, I would bet hard on that.

Eh, I wouldn't be sure about that. They may keep PS4 at $350 just due to how strong sales momentum is, but I don't think the price difference between the 2 models would be a significant factor in whether they drop or not. In fact I would say it has next to no impact. It all will come down to margins and sales trajectories. If they feel they need a drop they will.
 
Again read my post above. it's about percieved value. Sony wants the power, but they don't want the price gap to be so significant. a 200 dollar gap is the same as ps3-ps4. They need to keep the gap at 100 so it doesn't imply such a dramatic upgrade.

So, does that imply that they chose the better CPU, resulting in a $500 price tag for the PS4k and a $350 one for the OG? Let's not forget that OG PS4 was available for $299 last holiday I cannot imagine they stick to $350 one year later.
 

wapplew

Member
But do you truly want the PS5 to be held back architecture wise from the PS4K? Like what if Sony wanted the PS5 to have 64 GBs of RAM and a 1TB of bandwidth from the GPU to RAM and vice versa?

There's NO WAY games made to take advantage of that bandwidth and RAM space could run on the PS4K properly.

Held back by PS4K is lesser of two evil. Think about held back by OG PS4, now that's nightmare.
But you are right, I don't want to live in a world where first party can't even make exclusive for PS5 or PS5 doesn't exist only PS4K plus.
 
Eh, I wouldn't be sure about that. They may keep PS4 at $350 just due to how strong sales momentum is, but I don't think the price difference between the 2 models would be a significant factor in whether they drop or not. In fact I would say it has next to no impact. It all will come down to margins and sales trajectories. If they feel they need a drop they will.

It has to be a significant factor. Once again the ps3 wasn't even that huge of a gap. I can't see sony having the gap THAT big. As mentioned in your post as well it's selling so why drop? The trade in value remains high as well so they can get more early adopters to trade up.

I really hope they are. Go big or go home.

He confirmed that today.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
It's a meaningless statement. He doesn't quantify what is a substantial upgrade in his eyes. Double the performance could be substantial to him.

And let's bear in mind, a system like the rumoured spec here - which ought to be achievable for MS too, if they're not hamstrung by Edram at least - would be more like 3x the Xbox one.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
To be fair if they are dropping price this holiday retail wouldn't know about it yet. FOR SURE. They don't even tell partners that kind of thing this far out, because frankly Sony themselves still may not know. Just because they aren't talking about it doesn't mean a price drop on the original model can't happen.

This is why everything is so confusing. Why would Sony be briefing the three biggest game retailers 7/8 months in advance!?

I took your previous posts as questioning the same thing. A lot really doesn't add up at the minute but something real is happening.
 
But do you truly want the PS5 to be held back architecture wise from the PS4K? Like what if Sony wanted the PS5 to have 64 GBs of RAM and a 1TB of bandwidth from the GPU to RAM and vice versa?

How big a leap are we really expecting in another 3-4 years? And how big was the difference between PS3 and PS4, and what did that do to early cross-gen PS4 games?
 
It has to be a significant factor. Once again the ps3 wasn't even that huge of a gap. I can't see sony having the gap THAT big. As mentioned in your post as well it's selling so why drop? The trade in value remains high as well so they can get more early adopters to trade up.

Oh yeah, they very well may not drop price. The PS4 has been doing phenomenally so there really isn't too much incentive as of now for an official drop. But November and December are still 7 months away. Plenty can change between now and then. If they feel the margins make sense and they can move some significant hardware at $299 they'll make it happen. No idea which way they go on that front yet though

This is why everything is so confusing. Why would Sony be briefing the three biggest game retailers 7/8 months in advance!?

I took your previous posts as questioning the same thing. A lot really doesn't add up at the minute but something real is happening.

I'm questioning some of that myself, hence what went down in this thread earlier. So I don't want to go back down that path. We'll see one way or another soon enough. Either way PS4.5 is certainly real yeah.
 
How big a leap are we really expecting in another 3-4 years? And how big was the difference between PS3 and PS4, and what did that do to early cross-gen PS4 games?

There already weren't huge jumps anymore, but with this going forward, those leaps simply wont exist anymore. Brand new hardware obviously will show more improvement, rather than essentially Overclocked versions of the hardware, but ultimately we won't see those leaps ever again.
 
But do you truly want the PS5 to be held back architecture wise from the PS4K? Like what if Sony wanted the PS5 to have 64 GBs of RAM and a 1TB of bandwidth from the GPU to RAM and vice versa?

There's NO WAY games made to take advantage of that bandwidth and RAM space could run on the PS4K properly.

Maybe we should cross that bridge when we come to it...
 
Oh yeah, they very well may not drop price. The PS4 has been doing phenomenally so there really isn't too much incentive as of now for an official drop. But November and December are still 7 months away. Plenty can change between now and then. If they feel the margins make sense and they can move some significant hardware at $299 they'll make it happen. No idea which way they go on that front yet though

I guess so, I disagree though. I think that significant of a price gap will imply a full on generation jump, and also imply that that version of the ps4 is a much weaker platform. Ultimately they'll prefer to move the 4k, but I'm sure they dont want the OG to stop the momentum.
 

Goofy

Member
The more and more I think about this, the more I'm ok with it.

I hope this doesn't happen every generation, but in my eyes PS VR is a once in a lifetime opportunity and an upgrade that makes it truly special is worth it.

As far as the price - I'm hoping, since Sony will still sell original PS4, they go "all out" with PS4K. I'm more than OK with a $499 launch price if the hardware is there. It will come down soon enough, and people wanting a more affordable option in the meantime still have the OG PS4.

I'm not going to pretend this is a perfect situation. It's not, and there will be fragmentation and speed bumps. But in my eyes, it will be worth the trouble.

JMO~~~
 

GlamFM

Banned
This is why everything is so confusing. Why would Sony be briefing the three biggest game retailers 7/8 months in advance!?

I took your previous posts as questioning the same thing. A lot really doesn't add up at the minute but something real is happening.

Because the announcement is soon and pre-orders are happening.
 

Curufinwe

Member
He's saying the OG will stay 399, which means the new one will be 499 by virtue of HAVING to be more expensive. The alternative was to drop the price on the old one and launch 4k at 399 in it's place.

I imagine the 399 price point is for 2 reasons- 1. to keep trade in value high, and 2. to keep perceived value and price difference at bay. If OG dropped to 299 that would be a 200 dollar price gap. Sony can't afford to cell 2x CPU and GPU at 399 given their new strategy of profit on all hardware rather than cost leader.

Osiris can you confirm this?

The OG is already down to $350, though.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018V3ISJ2/?tag=neogaf0e-20
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sony-pl...lack/4700803.p?id=1219803565676&skuId=4700803

I could easily see Sony dropping that down to $300 by the Holidays.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
If this thread turns out to be on-point, and Sony reveals this at E3, I think they're going to regret not testing the waters first, as Microsoft seem to be doing nowadays.
Perhaps they are testing the waters with letting the information out in a way like this. There's been no word about this at all, much less any kind of commitment from any Sony officials. If they back down and PS4K never comes out, no one could really hold it against them.
 

OsirisBlack

Banned
This is why everything is so confusing. Why would Sony be briefing the three biggest game retailers 7/8 months in advance!?

I took your previous posts as questioning the same thing. A lot really doesn't add up at the minute but something real is happening.
Which is why I put a ? after the price drop section they may or may not we have no info on that but as of now there is nothing to report as far as a price drop is concerned the only thing we know without a doubt is that its coming and soon.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
There already weren't huge jumps anymore, but with this going forward, those leaps simply wont exist anymore. Brand new hardware obviously will show more improvement, rather than essentially Overclocked versions of the hardware, but ultimately we won't see those leaps ever again.

Are you sure about that with HBM2 on the horizon?

That is a lot of fucking bandwidth, compared to what we have now.
 
I guess so, I disagree though. I think that significant of a price gap will imply a full on generation jump, and also imply that that version of the ps4 is a much weaker platform. Ultimately they'll prefer to move the 4k, but I'm sure they dont want the OG to stop the momentum.

Two different markets. As long as they market correctly it really wont be that big a factor. The original PS4 will remain the mass market device no matter what just due to price point alone. I expect PS4.5 to sell well but PS4.5 will still be the market leader imo
 

jelly

Member
Maybe Sony are briefing retailers on clearing their stock for incoming models like a slim PS4 at E3 or an outright replacement with a PS4K.
 

Electret

Member
What's the current thinking on what PS4K's silicon will be? This thread is moving so fast it's difficult to keep up.

I see three possibilities:

1) Polaris. This seems the least likely, as, at least to some extent, development would need to be adapted to a moderately different architecture. I doubt Sony nor developers would find that palatable. It would also increase the difficulty of ensuring all PS4 titles are fully compatible.

2) Shrink the current PS4 APU down to a 14/16 nm process, stuff in more CPU cores and compute units, and potentially upclock. This seems pretty likely - it's probably the simplest way to obtain a significant boost in power while requiring the least amount of coding changes. Going forward, developers can code for both OG and 4K consoles in accordance with the way they target low, medium, and high quality presets for PC games.

3) '2x' or SLI. This is where I get confused; I would have figured (2) would have been far likelier but we've now got insiders implying some sort of a dual chip configuration. Zoetis specifically mentioned SLI. Is the logic that Sony would shrink the current PS4 APU down to 14/16 nm, and then stuff a second shrunken APU in the box? This just doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Option (2) would afford a similar increase in power without the fuss of connecting and coordinating operation of two APUs on separate packages. Then again, this wouldn't require AMD to go to the trouble of redesigning the APU with ~2x power on a 14/16 nm process as would be the case with option (2).

Regardless, we're pretty confident the PS4K silicon will be on a 14/16 nm process, right?
 
Having stated my opinion previously, I certainly hope Sony isn't dumb enough to launch this thing above 399 USD.


If it replaces the old one it's a dump move, if they offer two SKUs and the PS4k is the premium edition, $499 at launch makes actually sense, they can scalp the early adopters / enthusiasts and reduce the price to 399 as soon as the new one looses momentum....
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
No price drop on the original would also be one way of telegraphing to people that their existing PS4 is still as good and still has the same value it ever did. And that this new unit is an extra package with frills, not a replacement.
 
Maybe Sony are briefing retailers on clearing their stock for incoming models like a slim PS4 at E3 or an outright replacement with a PS4K.

Oh there are people within retail that know about it. They are just very very high up and that info typically isn't shared with the vast majority of the company. It will be with the decision makers such as CEO, President, Marketing Leader, etc.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
Because the announcement is soon and pre-orders are happening.

Accept like others have rightly said doing that would have a detrimental affect on PS4.

They would need to explain their PS4K plan first before we get release date and price. Similar to the February 13' reveal of PS4.
 

Curufinwe

Member
No price drop on the original would also be one way of telegraphing to people that their existing PS4 is still as good and still has the same value it ever did. And that this new unit is an extra package with frills, not a replacement.

$300 for PS4, $400 for PS4K in November sounds reasonable to me.
 
No price drop on the original would also be one way of telegraphing to people that their existing PS4 is still as good and still has the same value it ever did. And that this new unit is an extra package with frills, not a replacement.

Yup, it would also positively affect the residual value of used PS4s, making it attractive to sell the old one at a decent price and buy the new one...
 
Two different markets. As long as they market correctly it really wont be that big a factor. The original PS4 will remain the mass market device no matter what just due to price point alone. I expect PS4.5 to sell well but PS4.5 will still be the market leader imo

Nah sony wants to phase that out, slowly but surely IMO. They obviously want to push the higher hardware. It helps move 4k media in general, and it allows them to snatch that marketshare for that AND VR.

Are you sure about that with HBM2 on the horizon?

That is a lot of fucking bandwidth, compared to what we have now.

Like I said brand new hardware will see leaps, but ps4k will bring new peaks of visuals we wouldn't have seen, so the ps5 jump appears less.
 
I don't like this one bit. I just bought my ps4 a little over a year ago. It was bad enough knowing we just went from a 9 year cycle back to the old-school 5 year cycle, but now knowing that 2 years after my purchase, my experience will be gimped because they want to release a .5 system really pisses me off. This is not the mobile market!!! I cannot justify buying a new console every 2 years!
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
Another thing is if the new PS4 is smaller (and looks different?), what happens to the current PS4?

Does that continue to be built as it is now alongside or at another factory? Will it benefit from a die shrink? This all sounds expensive and complicated for Sony if not.
 
Sure, and?

If someone who wanted to pick up the PS4 right now decides to wait and pick up a PS4K for 100$ more instead I´m sure Sony is cool with that.

Ultimately I believe this is about VR marketshare. I think sony wants to win that war long term. Ultimately the PSVR wouldn't be able to do that (or at least sony doesn't think so) with the current power the ps4 is running. They want to run AAA quality in VR, not all the indies and specified games. The closest thing to AAA running on VR at the moment is Rigs, but even that is somewhat small in scale.
 

GlamFM

Banned
Another thing is if the new PS4 is smaller (and looks different?), what happens to the current PS4?

Does that continue to be built as it is now alongside or at another factory? Will it benefit from a die shrink? This all sounds expensive and complicated for Sony if not.

Let foxconn worry about that.

It´s not like Sony is building this thing in its own factories.

Ultimately I believe this is about VR marketshare. I think sony wants to win that war long term. Ultimately the PSVR wouldn't be able to do that (or at least sony doesn't think so) with the current power the ps4 is running. They want to run AAA quality in VR, not all the indies and specified games. The closest thing to AAA running on VR at the moment is Rigs, but even that is somewhat small in scale.

Agree.
 
Lol, 500$ and only 500Gb? Ahahahaah, I'm definitely out.

I have to see the full specs but i rather they spend money on power than HDD space.
I have more than one laptop HDD sitting around here i can put in .
It rather funny to see that i semi hype about hardware again so soon but i all for this .
 

spons

Gold Member
Let foxconn worry about that.

It´s not like Sony is building this thing in its own factories.
Surprised to see no leaks from inside Foxconn yet, now that you mention it. Most smartphone details get leaked weeks before even a single official announcement of them are made.
 

GlamFM

Banned
Surprised to see no leaks from inside Foxconn yet, now that you mention it. Most smartphone details get leaked weeks before even a single official announcement of them are made.

Sony, MS and Nintendo managed to keep the look of their boxes a secret until they were revealed.

Probably because mass production had not started yet?
 

Curufinwe

Member
Ultimately I believe this is about VR marketshare. I think sony wants to win that war long term. Ultimately the PSVR wouldn't be able to do that (or at least sony doesn't think so) with the current power the ps4 is running. They want to run AAA quality in VR, not all the indies and specified games. The closest thing to AAA running on VR at the moment is Rigs, but even that is somewhat small in scale.

Maybe they really want a VR version of No Man's Sky and just can't get it to work on PS4.

Hence, PS4K.
 
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