Gahiggidy said:
PS3 also had BlueRay, 1st generation, and a hard drive inside. As for Xbox 360 and its large case, well, that's made by Microsoft.
Blu-ray doesn't increase the size of the console.. and both revs of MS's console came with room for a hard drive inside... just like Sony's.
As far as features/size is concerned the only real difference was the power brick on 360 vs. internal for PS3.. but the PS3 wasn't smaller than the 360 originally.
PS3 Slim > Xbox 360 Slim > Wii-U in size.
It will be the smallest of the 3 at launch... if it had a 2.5" hard drive like the 360S has room for, it might be the same size. Either way that "size" adds room into the case of the 360S overall.. potentially adding more room for active cooling components.
The point digital foundry was trying to make is that it uses the same die process, so should have similar heat output/speed ratio... and that it would be difficult to make something in a smaller case, using the same die process be significantly more powerful.
It's just speculation either way, but it has logical merit. Why is this so hard for people to digest? Nintendo might wow us with the power/size.. they might not.. and they may have been able to do more power wise launching in a bigger case... then shrinking the thing down when parts become smaller.
If MS and Sony make their next consoles using 45nm processes, they probably will go back to pre-slim sizes.. have more room for cooling.. have their systems clocked higher than Nintendo's, etc.