Stephen Colbert
Banned
Speculation: Sonys next generation of gaming hardware will be centered around three key elements.
1. Playstation 4 A dedicated all-in-one home entertainment system powered by Project Denver.
2. Playstation Vita A dedicated gaming handheld powered by what is basically a clone of the same A6 SOC powering the next iPad and iPhone.
3. Xperia Play 2 An all-in-one portable cellphone identically speced to the Playstation Vita, capable of playing all Vita games, but built on a 22nm process and packed into a more portable and more efficient package.
What is Project Denver?
Project Denver is NVIDIAs combined cpu/gpu architecture due out in 2013. It embeds the powerful cortex a15 cpu from ARM with the Maxwell gpu architecture from Nvidia onto one unified chip. Its one of the biggest undertakings that Nvidia has ever done.
While this will be shopped around as an independent GPU, due to the a15 integration, the GPU will be more than capable of running a full featured OS, calculating physics, AI and all general functions that a gaming console would need to be able to perform.
Here is additional information about the capabilities of the cortex a15 cpu being embedded into Maxwell
http://arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-u...r-to-dramatically-accelerate-capabilities.php
Here is additional information about the Maxwell GPU
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19675
Gaming hardware this powerful could easily sustain Sony another decade.
How much would it cost?
Fermi retailed for $299 at launch. The retailer price always include a significant wholesaler markup, a large retailer markup, marketing cost and shipping and packaging costs, which combined usually account for about half the final retail price of any product. For a major partner buying (or licensing) the chips in bulk direct from the factory, the cost will be significantly lower, as low as $150 per chip.
Not having to go out and purchase a seperate CPU shaves a huge amoung of the cost from the PS4. A $399 pricetag for the PS4 wouldnt be out of the question if the console is packing nothing more than this chip to act as both the cpu and gpu, as well as a blu ray drive and a few inexpensives things like Wifi and Bluetooth. And by licensing a third party developed gpu and having the third party swallow all the R&D cost, they can do the same thing they did with the Vita, release an enormously powerful device at not an absurd price point while still not taking a significant loss on each console sold.
When will it come out?
This chip is due out in 2013. If I were Sony of Microsoft, I would target a fall 2014 release date for the next console just in case of unanticipated delays, to give devs more time with final dev kits, and to reduce costs by waiting till the production is full steam ahead and all the kinks are worked out before jumping in.
The timeline for Project Denver makes sense for Sony. Sonys first party development is still very active on the PS3, they are showing regular year on year growth, and they can still lower the price of the PS3 to boost sales. I dont think they will be ready to move on to the Playstation 4 until 2014 at the earliest, until the 22nm die size is available and can allow them to make a significant leap forward technologically at minimal cost. Games like Killzone and Uncharted look fantastic already. They also have the Vita to focus on making successful, and the longer they wait, the closer they get to bringing their investment with the PS3 back into black.
2013 also ties in with a dramatic die shrink to 22nm, that is expected to happen in that year, for ARM, Nvidia, AMD and PowerVR. As an aside, such a dramatic die shrink for ARM and PowerVR could easily coincide with a whole host of other devices, from a iPhone Mini, to a Playstation Vita redesign and an Xperia Play 2 smartphone packing the same internals as the Vita. So 2013 should a very interesting year to keep an eye out for releases in general. Letting the dust settle on the impact of this die shrink and releasing this device at the end of 2013, or early 2014 would be a wiser move than rushing something to market in 2012 built on a dated 32 nanometer process.
Why would Nvidia license out their newest architecture to a game console?
Money for one thing. Subsiding their investment for another. But most importantly, it would be a sure fire way to ensure that developers go out and code engines specifically to take advantage of this architecture and the enormous bandwidths it offers. On the PC, where they have to code games to support a dozen different architectures, the engines usually ignore unique features such as this. But on the console, this isnt the case, the best developers code down to the metal and build engines that specifically utilize the architectures strengths. Those same engines could then be ported over to the PC to produce stunning looking games that will ensure this architecture succeeds.
Why would Sony opt for Project Denver?
Sony has a long tradition of pushing technology to its limits, and in turn leveraging the PlayStation brand to help its own technologically superior formats succeed. This is why the PlayStation brand consistently draws in the tech enthusiasts, the early adopters, and gets retailers like Best Buy to bundle their consoles with their newest televisions. If Sony had the PlayStation brand to leverage back when they were launching the BetaMax, that format war would have gone in a different direction as well.
People take away the wrong lesson from the PS2 and PS3. The mistakes Sony made with both systems was to invest in developing a brand new processor largely on their own (the Emotion Engine in the PS2 and the Cell in the PS3) rather than simply seek out ATI or NVIDIA well ahead of time and work with them to deliver the best possible processor they can. Both the EE and the Cell were ridiculously expensive to develop, a nightmare to program for, and I think the PS2 and PS3 would have been just as successful without them. Without the Cell, the PS3 could have probably launched with a price tag of around $499 for the premium model and come roaring out of the gate.
Blu Ray by itself was a net gain for Sony. HDMI was a net gain for Sony. The only investment that didnt pay off for them was the Cell. Yet the PS3 despite all the criticism, the obscene launch price, and giving the 360 a full year head start, is still neck and neck with the 360 in terms of sales and is beloved by most gamers. There is no need to throw out Sonys process. All Sony needs to do is contain the costs to launch their console under a price tag of $499 for the premium model and $399 for the barebones model.
Project Denver would also be powerful enough to decode HVDs at 4k resolution aka film resolution video. It makes far too much sense for movie studios to use these HVDs to distribute their films to movie theater than the current massive expensive spindles they use now. The more movie theaters that use these discs, the more the costs fall and the more viable it becomes for consumers. Initially, people with projectors in their basements will want it. Soon after, people with 4k resolution tvs (which will be fairly common since that is the easiest way to do glassless 3D at 1080p) will also want it.
They could easily pair the PS4 with a DualMove + Eye HD A Dual Shock that splits in half into two Move controllers with a target release date in 2014, $399 for the basic sku, $499 for the premium model, all without losing a penny on each console sold.
What is the A6?
The A6 is Apples up and coming SOC that will be powering the Retina Display iPad 3 and either the 2011 or the 2012 iPhone. Rumors are that the A6 combines a quadcore A9 cpu with a PowerVR Series 6 gpu and that Apples partners just began production of four million A6 SOCs due out by Christmas of 2011. This A6 is rumored to be powering the upcoming retina display iPad with a ridiculously high resolution of over 2000x1500 in a 10 display, and the launch window being targeted is Christmas of 2011.
The latest news from Sony is that the Playstation Vita has been delayed until early 2012 and Sony has been coy about nailing down the precise final hardware specs of the Vita. They havent even been answering questions about how much RAM the system has, much less things like clockspeeds. Given the time frame and the sheer number of game developers programming for the Apple iPad and iPhone, it makes quite a bit of intuitive sense to use that same configuration in the Playstation Vita. A quad core A9 cpu is already confirmed, opting to use the PowerVR Series 6 gpu is all it would take to match the iPad 3 and the 2012 iPhone.
In one easy step, Sony ensures that porting any app or piece of software available on the iPad or iPhone over to the Playstation Vita becomes a breeze, and Sony in turn get to claim that their device is the only one capable of playing stand out iOS games like Real Racing 3 or Spider 2: Legend of Bryce Mansion with physical buttons and triggers.
PowerVR announced that it had six licensees for their Series 6 GPU back in Feb of 2011, with hints all but confirming that both Apple and Sony were among those six.
What is the PowerVR Series 6 gpu?
PowerVR makes mobile gpus. Their Series 2 gpus powered the Dreamcast. Their Series 5 gpus came out in 2005 and have powered every single iPad and most of the iPhones ever made as well as the Intel GMA integrated graphics cards in Intels cpus. And their Series 6 gpus were unveiled on Feb of 2011 and are slated to be 20-100 times more powerful than their Series 5 offerings while consuming the same amount of power as the Series 5.
There was a six year gap between the Series 5 and Series 6 gpu lines. If the Vita comes out with the Series 5 right around the same time the next generation of apple devices show up with the Series 6 gpu line, Sony will look dated. iPad and iPhone gaming will quickly leapfrog past what the Vita is capable of and hinder any early momentum the device garners. However, if the Vita matches the A6s configuration, it will be packing the same series of GPUs as it atleast the next 5 generations of iOS devices.
The Series 6 deliver in excess of 210 GFLOPS and 350 million real polygons and a visible fill rate of 5 Gigapixels, although ST-Ericsson claims that thanks to the deferred rendering thats part of the PowerVR technology the actual fill rate should be closer to 13 Gigapixels. This is comfortably beyond the performance of both the Xbox 360 and the PS3's gpu.
Discounting the PC, if Sony does this, the NGP could wind up with what is easily the best looking version of all multiplatform releases this generation, and could even wind up with early next generation multiplatform games, without too much downgrading. Opting to do this, combined with the closed nature of the NGP, would make the Vita seem relevant many iOS generations from now. Sony will not have to fear iPad games looking on par with or superior to NGP games, for many many years.
The rogue (series 6) is reported to be roughly 20 times more powerful than the Mali, and up to thirteen times more powerful than each SGX543 core, running at the same clockspeed and with a similar power draw.
It seems like Sony announced the NGP with the most capable configuration available at the time. Even if they were aware of the six series and were already testing to see if they can implement it into the NGP cheaply, since the chip wasn't announced yet and anyone aware of it likely had to sign an NDA, they couldn't talk about it. And they well couldn't delay the NGPs announcement and let the 3DS get all the hype and press attention.
If Apple is already fooling around with Retina Display iPad prototypes powered by the A6, it doesn't seem all that unlikely that Sony is already testing the series 6 gpu in the NGP prototypes and if they determine that they can upgrade to it and it's worthwhile to do so, they will do just that. These days, a few months is a whole new generation as far as mobile devices goes. However, Power VR Series 6 will be around for atleast half a decade.
It's in Sony's best interests if the NGP's graphics don't feel dated even many years from now. It's in Sony's best interests to release a handheld that continue to feel relevent, continues to get multiplatform releases, and continues to sell well for as long as possible.
Assuming that it's cost effective for sony to use series 6, long term, this would make them a lot more money. If the NGP continues getting multiplatform releases in 2020, there is no reason for Sony to be unhappy about that. They could ensure that the NGP doesn't even begin to feel dated as a handheld, until 2020 or so, and continues to have very strong sales even a decade from now.
As is, it's basically confirmed that the NGP won't be shipping until next year anyways. Would it really make much difference whether the device shows up in January, or in March? If Apple is able to get this gpu.
The new series is almost exactly the same foot print as the previous series, in terms of power usage, heat generated and also in terms of size. Its also been confirmed that the gpu will fully support all software designed to run on the previous generation's gpu as well.
Last minute changes are not without precedent for Sony. The PS3 underwent various tweaks in the number of ethernet ports it contains, the number of HDMI inputs it has, and the number of USB ports it has, well after it was shown off publically, and fairly close to release. Likewise the RSX was added to the PS3 fairly close to it's release, and the very earliest dev kits didn't even feature a standalone gpu. The series 6 will also take up a very similar footprint compared to the series 5 gpu, so Sony really wouldn't have to alter the exterior design at all. They could simply build the rest of the NGP as is, and simply opt to use the newer chipset inside.
Even though Sony is currently using the cutting edge PowerVR 5 series gpu in all the dev kits. Any game designed to run on the series 5 gpu will most likely run just fine on the series 6 gpu. So none of the work that game developers sank into making launch NGP games would be wasted.
How much would it cost?
PowerVR and ARM have always been excellent about pricing. They never once charged more than a few dollars to license any of their designs.
The iPhone 4/iPad 1's A4 (cpu + gpu) cost Apple a grand total of $10.75 according to iSuppli. This is both the licensing cost + the manufacturing costs.
http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/Ne...Materials-of-187-51-According-to-iSuppli.aspx
The iPad 2's A5 (updated dual core cpu + updated dual core gpu) cost Apple $14 according to iSuppli. Once again, this including both the licensing costs and the manufacturing costs.
http://muchipad.com/node/90
What it comes down to is a difference of a few dollars, per Vita. And while this can be substantial when the Vita is produced in large numbers, ensuring that the Vita wont be leapfrogged by portable devices for atleast half a decade, ensuring that the Vita can actually house the very best looking versions of current gen console games with no sacrifices, and ensuring that all future iOS software can readily be ported over to the Vita, would be well worth that investment.
What about the Xperia Play?
The original Xperia Play has basically being pushed out to die. Sony expended barely any effort into developing exclusive gaming content for it, barely gave it any marketing support, and all things considered, its remarkable that the device generated as much buzz as it did.
There is indeed a rich untapped market of people that want a fully featured, completely capable smartphone, that is also able to run the latest games and allow you to control them competently.
There is very clear and obvious path forward that would allow Sony to tap into this market.
Once the 22-28nm die shrink is available next year, package the internals of the Playstation Vita into the same form factor as the Playstation Go/Xperia Play. Market it as the Xperia Play 2 and have it be capable of playing every single Playstation Vita game released, as well as receive easy ports of every single iPhone/iPad game released. Make sure the phone OS is also competently designed and fully functional and just sit back and watch the device explode in the marketplace.
There isnt a gamer alive that wouldnt at least consider a fully featured cutting edge smartphone that can play games of the caliber of Playstation Vita titles, using the same identical control inputs as are available on the Vita including dual analog nubs. The upcoming dieshrink to 28nm would allow the Vita Phone/PSP2 Go to retain the current size while packing in more features and a larger battery. Sony could easily target a release date of 2012/2013 at a price of $99 with a two year contract, $399 without a contract.
1. Playstation 4 A dedicated all-in-one home entertainment system powered by Project Denver.
2. Playstation Vita A dedicated gaming handheld powered by what is basically a clone of the same A6 SOC powering the next iPad and iPhone.
3. Xperia Play 2 An all-in-one portable cellphone identically speced to the Playstation Vita, capable of playing all Vita games, but built on a 22nm process and packed into a more portable and more efficient package.
What is Project Denver?
Project Denver is NVIDIAs combined cpu/gpu architecture due out in 2013. It embeds the powerful cortex a15 cpu from ARM with the Maxwell gpu architecture from Nvidia onto one unified chip. Its one of the biggest undertakings that Nvidia has ever done.
While this will be shopped around as an independent GPU, due to the a15 integration, the GPU will be more than capable of running a full featured OS, calculating physics, AI and all general functions that a gaming console would need to be able to perform.
Here is additional information about the capabilities of the cortex a15 cpu being embedded into Maxwell
http://arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-u...r-to-dramatically-accelerate-capabilities.php
Here is additional information about the Maxwell GPU
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/19675
http://raytracey.blogspot.com/2011/03/some-details-about-project-denver.html
Gaming hardware this powerful could easily sustain Sony another decade.
How much would it cost?
Fermi retailed for $299 at launch. The retailer price always include a significant wholesaler markup, a large retailer markup, marketing cost and shipping and packaging costs, which combined usually account for about half the final retail price of any product. For a major partner buying (or licensing) the chips in bulk direct from the factory, the cost will be significantly lower, as low as $150 per chip.
Not having to go out and purchase a seperate CPU shaves a huge amoung of the cost from the PS4. A $399 pricetag for the PS4 wouldnt be out of the question if the console is packing nothing more than this chip to act as both the cpu and gpu, as well as a blu ray drive and a few inexpensives things like Wifi and Bluetooth. And by licensing a third party developed gpu and having the third party swallow all the R&D cost, they can do the same thing they did with the Vita, release an enormously powerful device at not an absurd price point while still not taking a significant loss on each console sold.
When will it come out?
This chip is due out in 2013. If I were Sony of Microsoft, I would target a fall 2014 release date for the next console just in case of unanticipated delays, to give devs more time with final dev kits, and to reduce costs by waiting till the production is full steam ahead and all the kinks are worked out before jumping in.
The timeline for Project Denver makes sense for Sony. Sonys first party development is still very active on the PS3, they are showing regular year on year growth, and they can still lower the price of the PS3 to boost sales. I dont think they will be ready to move on to the Playstation 4 until 2014 at the earliest, until the 22nm die size is available and can allow them to make a significant leap forward technologically at minimal cost. Games like Killzone and Uncharted look fantastic already. They also have the Vita to focus on making successful, and the longer they wait, the closer they get to bringing their investment with the PS3 back into black.
2013 also ties in with a dramatic die shrink to 22nm, that is expected to happen in that year, for ARM, Nvidia, AMD and PowerVR. As an aside, such a dramatic die shrink for ARM and PowerVR could easily coincide with a whole host of other devices, from a iPhone Mini, to a Playstation Vita redesign and an Xperia Play 2 smartphone packing the same internals as the Vita. So 2013 should a very interesting year to keep an eye out for releases in general. Letting the dust settle on the impact of this die shrink and releasing this device at the end of 2013, or early 2014 would be a wiser move than rushing something to market in 2012 built on a dated 32 nanometer process.
Why would Nvidia license out their newest architecture to a game console?
Money for one thing. Subsiding their investment for another. But most importantly, it would be a sure fire way to ensure that developers go out and code engines specifically to take advantage of this architecture and the enormous bandwidths it offers. On the PC, where they have to code games to support a dozen different architectures, the engines usually ignore unique features such as this. But on the console, this isnt the case, the best developers code down to the metal and build engines that specifically utilize the architectures strengths. Those same engines could then be ported over to the PC to produce stunning looking games that will ensure this architecture succeeds.
Why would Sony opt for Project Denver?
Sony has a long tradition of pushing technology to its limits, and in turn leveraging the PlayStation brand to help its own technologically superior formats succeed. This is why the PlayStation brand consistently draws in the tech enthusiasts, the early adopters, and gets retailers like Best Buy to bundle their consoles with their newest televisions. If Sony had the PlayStation brand to leverage back when they were launching the BetaMax, that format war would have gone in a different direction as well.
People take away the wrong lesson from the PS2 and PS3. The mistakes Sony made with both systems was to invest in developing a brand new processor largely on their own (the Emotion Engine in the PS2 and the Cell in the PS3) rather than simply seek out ATI or NVIDIA well ahead of time and work with them to deliver the best possible processor they can. Both the EE and the Cell were ridiculously expensive to develop, a nightmare to program for, and I think the PS2 and PS3 would have been just as successful without them. Without the Cell, the PS3 could have probably launched with a price tag of around $499 for the premium model and come roaring out of the gate.
Blu Ray by itself was a net gain for Sony. HDMI was a net gain for Sony. The only investment that didnt pay off for them was the Cell. Yet the PS3 despite all the criticism, the obscene launch price, and giving the 360 a full year head start, is still neck and neck with the 360 in terms of sales and is beloved by most gamers. There is no need to throw out Sonys process. All Sony needs to do is contain the costs to launch their console under a price tag of $499 for the premium model and $399 for the barebones model.
Project Denver would also be powerful enough to decode HVDs at 4k resolution aka film resolution video. It makes far too much sense for movie studios to use these HVDs to distribute their films to movie theater than the current massive expensive spindles they use now. The more movie theaters that use these discs, the more the costs fall and the more viable it becomes for consumers. Initially, people with projectors in their basements will want it. Soon after, people with 4k resolution tvs (which will be fairly common since that is the easiest way to do glassless 3D at 1080p) will also want it.
They could easily pair the PS4 with a DualMove + Eye HD A Dual Shock that splits in half into two Move controllers with a target release date in 2014, $399 for the basic sku, $499 for the premium model, all without losing a penny on each console sold.
What is the A6?
The A6 is Apples up and coming SOC that will be powering the Retina Display iPad 3 and either the 2011 or the 2012 iPhone. Rumors are that the A6 combines a quadcore A9 cpu with a PowerVR Series 6 gpu and that Apples partners just began production of four million A6 SOCs due out by Christmas of 2011. This A6 is rumored to be powering the upcoming retina display iPad with a ridiculously high resolution of over 2000x1500 in a 10 display, and the launch window being targeted is Christmas of 2011.
The latest news from Sony is that the Playstation Vita has been delayed until early 2012 and Sony has been coy about nailing down the precise final hardware specs of the Vita. They havent even been answering questions about how much RAM the system has, much less things like clockspeeds. Given the time frame and the sheer number of game developers programming for the Apple iPad and iPhone, it makes quite a bit of intuitive sense to use that same configuration in the Playstation Vita. A quad core A9 cpu is already confirmed, opting to use the PowerVR Series 6 gpu is all it would take to match the iPad 3 and the 2012 iPhone.
In one easy step, Sony ensures that porting any app or piece of software available on the iPad or iPhone over to the Playstation Vita becomes a breeze, and Sony in turn get to claim that their device is the only one capable of playing stand out iOS games like Real Racing 3 or Spider 2: Legend of Bryce Mansion with physical buttons and triggers.
PowerVR announced that it had six licensees for their Series 6 GPU back in Feb of 2011, with hints all but confirming that both Apple and Sony were among those six.
What is the PowerVR Series 6 gpu?
PowerVR makes mobile gpus. Their Series 2 gpus powered the Dreamcast. Their Series 5 gpus came out in 2005 and have powered every single iPad and most of the iPhones ever made as well as the Intel GMA integrated graphics cards in Intels cpus. And their Series 6 gpus were unveiled on Feb of 2011 and are slated to be 20-100 times more powerful than their Series 5 offerings while consuming the same amount of power as the Series 5.
There was a six year gap between the Series 5 and Series 6 gpu lines. If the Vita comes out with the Series 5 right around the same time the next generation of apple devices show up with the Series 6 gpu line, Sony will look dated. iPad and iPhone gaming will quickly leapfrog past what the Vita is capable of and hinder any early momentum the device garners. However, if the Vita matches the A6s configuration, it will be packing the same series of GPUs as it atleast the next 5 generations of iOS devices.
The Series 6 deliver in excess of 210 GFLOPS and 350 million real polygons and a visible fill rate of 5 Gigapixels, although ST-Ericsson claims that thanks to the deferred rendering thats part of the PowerVR technology the actual fill rate should be closer to 13 Gigapixels. This is comfortably beyond the performance of both the Xbox 360 and the PS3's gpu.
Discounting the PC, if Sony does this, the NGP could wind up with what is easily the best looking version of all multiplatform releases this generation, and could even wind up with early next generation multiplatform games, without too much downgrading. Opting to do this, combined with the closed nature of the NGP, would make the Vita seem relevant many iOS generations from now. Sony will not have to fear iPad games looking on par with or superior to NGP games, for many many years.
The rogue (series 6) is reported to be roughly 20 times more powerful than the Mali, and up to thirteen times more powerful than each SGX543 core, running at the same clockspeed and with a similar power draw.
It seems like Sony announced the NGP with the most capable configuration available at the time. Even if they were aware of the six series and were already testing to see if they can implement it into the NGP cheaply, since the chip wasn't announced yet and anyone aware of it likely had to sign an NDA, they couldn't talk about it. And they well couldn't delay the NGPs announcement and let the 3DS get all the hype and press attention.
If Apple is already fooling around with Retina Display iPad prototypes powered by the A6, it doesn't seem all that unlikely that Sony is already testing the series 6 gpu in the NGP prototypes and if they determine that they can upgrade to it and it's worthwhile to do so, they will do just that. These days, a few months is a whole new generation as far as mobile devices goes. However, Power VR Series 6 will be around for atleast half a decade.
It's in Sony's best interests if the NGP's graphics don't feel dated even many years from now. It's in Sony's best interests to release a handheld that continue to feel relevent, continues to get multiplatform releases, and continues to sell well for as long as possible.
Assuming that it's cost effective for sony to use series 6, long term, this would make them a lot more money. If the NGP continues getting multiplatform releases in 2020, there is no reason for Sony to be unhappy about that. They could ensure that the NGP doesn't even begin to feel dated as a handheld, until 2020 or so, and continues to have very strong sales even a decade from now.
As is, it's basically confirmed that the NGP won't be shipping until next year anyways. Would it really make much difference whether the device shows up in January, or in March? If Apple is able to get this gpu.
The new series is almost exactly the same foot print as the previous series, in terms of power usage, heat generated and also in terms of size. Its also been confirmed that the gpu will fully support all software designed to run on the previous generation's gpu as well.
Last minute changes are not without precedent for Sony. The PS3 underwent various tweaks in the number of ethernet ports it contains, the number of HDMI inputs it has, and the number of USB ports it has, well after it was shown off publically, and fairly close to release. Likewise the RSX was added to the PS3 fairly close to it's release, and the very earliest dev kits didn't even feature a standalone gpu. The series 6 will also take up a very similar footprint compared to the series 5 gpu, so Sony really wouldn't have to alter the exterior design at all. They could simply build the rest of the NGP as is, and simply opt to use the newer chipset inside.
Even though Sony is currently using the cutting edge PowerVR 5 series gpu in all the dev kits. Any game designed to run on the series 5 gpu will most likely run just fine on the series 6 gpu. So none of the work that game developers sank into making launch NGP games would be wasted.
How much would it cost?
PowerVR and ARM have always been excellent about pricing. They never once charged more than a few dollars to license any of their designs.
The iPhone 4/iPad 1's A4 (cpu + gpu) cost Apple a grand total of $10.75 according to iSuppli. This is both the licensing cost + the manufacturing costs.
http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/Ne...Materials-of-187-51-According-to-iSuppli.aspx
The iPad 2's A5 (updated dual core cpu + updated dual core gpu) cost Apple $14 according to iSuppli. Once again, this including both the licensing costs and the manufacturing costs.
http://muchipad.com/node/90
What it comes down to is a difference of a few dollars, per Vita. And while this can be substantial when the Vita is produced in large numbers, ensuring that the Vita wont be leapfrogged by portable devices for atleast half a decade, ensuring that the Vita can actually house the very best looking versions of current gen console games with no sacrifices, and ensuring that all future iOS software can readily be ported over to the Vita, would be well worth that investment.
What about the Xperia Play?
The original Xperia Play has basically being pushed out to die. Sony expended barely any effort into developing exclusive gaming content for it, barely gave it any marketing support, and all things considered, its remarkable that the device generated as much buzz as it did.
There is indeed a rich untapped market of people that want a fully featured, completely capable smartphone, that is also able to run the latest games and allow you to control them competently.
There is very clear and obvious path forward that would allow Sony to tap into this market.
Once the 22-28nm die shrink is available next year, package the internals of the Playstation Vita into the same form factor as the Playstation Go/Xperia Play. Market it as the Xperia Play 2 and have it be capable of playing every single Playstation Vita game released, as well as receive easy ports of every single iPhone/iPad game released. Make sure the phone OS is also competently designed and fully functional and just sit back and watch the device explode in the marketplace.
There isnt a gamer alive that wouldnt at least consider a fully featured cutting edge smartphone that can play games of the caliber of Playstation Vita titles, using the same identical control inputs as are available on the Vita including dual analog nubs. The upcoming dieshrink to 28nm would allow the Vita Phone/PSP2 Go to retain the current size while packing in more features and a larger battery. Sony could easily target a release date of 2012/2013 at a price of $99 with a two year contract, $399 without a contract.
