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[Shin]

Long long time lurker first time Post here.

Welcome!
A good start as it's not some drive by post and hopefully GAF will keep growing with quality posts and people like you've shown.

 

[AgentP]

1. Code to the metal 12TF
2. Code to the metal 4TF

Pick one, you don't get both.

What if the metal is the same? If the only difference is GPU, conceivably you could scale the same games with minimal effort. This assumes CPU, bandwidth, etc. are the same so you don't create new bottlenecks.

Of course the "leaks" have the systems with 4GB difference, so that doesn't make sense.

 

[Negotiator]

4tf at 1080p, the 12tf machines will be targeting 4k dont forget. 4tf at 1080p is the same requirements at 12tf at 4k.

Something is wrong with the math.

12 TF = 4 TF * 3

4K = 1080p * 4

???

 

[Negotiator]

You need 4 times the horsepower to run a 1080p game at 4k, right. 12tf is 4 times 4tf.

Yeah, the numbers are clearly off.

I thought we were talking about the exact same GPU uArch (Navi), so comparing 4TF to 12TF is 3 times, not 4. Apple to apples comparison, I'm not comparing Navi to Vega or Polaris or GCN 1.1.

Nintendo does the same thing on Switch: 200 Gigaflops in portable mode vs 400 Gigaflops in docked mode.

1080p is roughly 2 times 720p, so you need double the amount of flops. MS will need 4x flops to quadruple the resolution.

Am I missing something?

 

[vpance]

Now that I'm thinking of it, a cheap box that runs the same games at 1080p and is diskless could take the next gen by storm if it's substantially cheaper than the PS5.

Something tells me a cheaper box isn't going to make as big of an impact as you might think.

The amount of people that buy consoles from generation to generation is still roughly the same (Wii was the anomaly). I don't think pricing is really the limiter here. I see console users as fairly discerning quality wise (PC gamers the most, mobile the least). A cheaper lower quality box may not instantly double sales, with console gamers becoming more and more performance concerned, thanks to sites like DF.

Maybe some usual mid gen buyers will shift to buy it earlier, but by and large early on new gen sales will be driven by core gamers, and they definitely want the premium model.

 

[Shin]

Something tells me a cheaper box isn't going to make as big of an impact as you might think.

If the performance is around that in 2020 then I'm pretty confident in assuming that it won't be $299 but more along the lines of $149 - $199.
All things considered, memory, process node, GPU and CPU architecture gains, delta color compression, etc etc should make for a sweet HD box at a sweet price.
It would be very small, less prone to hardware failure (at least from an optical drive / heat dissipation perspective), money saved on BoM...basically floor prices console.
As software and services is where it's at, sure it remains to be seen but if it takes off it could also do exceptionally well with/at casuals/families/X-Mas presents, etc etc.

 

[vpance]

If the performance is around that in 2020 then I'm pretty confident in assuming that it won't be $299 but more along the lines of $149 - $199.
All things considered, memory, process node, GPU and CPU architecture gains, delta color compression, etc etc should make for a sweet HD box at a sweet price.
It would be very small, less prone to hardware failure (at least from an optical drive / heat dissipation perspective), money saved on BoM...basically floor prices console.
As software and services is where it's at, sure it remains to be seen but if it takes off it could also do exceptionally well with/at casuals/families/X-Mas presents, etc etc.

$149 feels extremely optimistic. My gut tells me $199 - $249. $299 would be DOA for sure.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Something tells me a cheaper box isn't going to make as big of an impact as you might think.

The amount of people that buy consoles from generation to generation is still roughly the same (Wii was the anomaly). I don't think pricing is really the limiter here. I see console users as fairly discerning quality wise (PC gamers the most, mobile the least). A cheaper lower quality box may not instantly double sales, with console gamers becoming more and more performance concerned, thanks to sites like DF.

Maybe some usual mid gen buyers will shift to buy it earlier, but by and large early on new gen sales will be driven by core gamers, and they definitely want the premium model.

DF and other deep analysis have been rising in popularity with the core demographic, but we're not the only demographic. Think of a parent buying a console for their kids, one is 150 dollars cheaper than the others and runs most of the same games, they probably don't give a hoot about how many lines of horizontal resolution it'll fill. A cheaper next gen box could really be lightning in a bottle imo.

Maybe they want another 900P box at the low end?

If the rumor is right, the weaker GPU has 1/3rd the execution resources of the big one, while having the same processor and memory. It should be able to more than do 1080p wherever the bigger one does 4K.

 

[AgentP]

Maybe they want another 900P box at the low end?

 

[onQ123]

If 4TF & 12TF is the final specs I would guess that the small console is a small device that's not going to have much cooling hardware so it will be clocked lower than the full size console

32 CU GPU clocked at 1GHz with 8GB - 12GB of GDDR6 while the full size console is 64 CU GPU clocked at 1.5GHz with 16GB - 24GB of GDDR6

 

[Negotiator]

Writing to the metal produces greater results than not.

I think you're a bit confused here.

ALL games will be written to the metal (as long as they use the DX12 API).

4TF consoles will run DX12 games at 1080p60 (OG PS4 at 2TF targets 1080p30). 12TF consoles will run DX12 games at 4K-ish (true 4K would require 16 TF, since it's 4x compared to 1080p) maybe checkerboard or another reconstruction technique (DLSS-like?) that imitates 4K at 60 fps.

Cerny has already said that you need 8TF to run all current-gen games at 4k 30 fps. True 4K at 60 fps would require double the amount of flops.

What you meant to say is that PS5 exclusives (TLOU2 is not one of them) will have a 12TF baseline.

XB2 exclusives will have a 4TF baseline. 3x difference. PS5 users will get shafted in multiplatform games (sounds like the PS3 era/Cell SPU coding being absent in multiplatform games?). The gap will be huge, no question about that.

Cross-gen games will still be limited by PS4/XB1 specs (1.84 TF and 1.31 TF respectively).

Halo Infinite will be a cross-gen game. Same for TLOU2.

I hope that clears up the confusion.

This isn't exactly true, compute doesn't scale resolution linearly. Also another thing you're not considering is rendering surplus. 1080p is a hard cap, but that doesn't mean that system is being tapped out at that resolution, it could have extra compute to give which would translate to the other system as well.

Switch portable vs docked mode would like to have a word with you.

With Microsoft releasing DirectML soon I wouldn't be too worried about the 4TF model it's going to make good use of 8-bit , 10-bit & 16-bit & it will most likely have a A.I processor on board for things like super resolution & so on.

10-bit why?

There's INT4, INT8, FP16, FP32 and FP64 (not really useful for gaming apps).

Where did you see 10-bit? Perhaps you got confused with HDR10.

What if the metal is the same? If the only difference is GPU, conceivably you could scale the same games with minimal effort. This assumes CPU, bandwidth, etc. are the same so you don't create new bottlenecks.

Of course the "leaks" have the systems with 4GB difference, so that doesn't make sense.

+4GB RAM makes sense for the 4K framebuffer + 4K assets/textures.

It's the same thing with the 8GB vs 12GB difference in current-gen consoles...

If the performance is around that in 2020 then I'm pretty confident in assuming that it won't be $299 but more along the lines of $149 - $199.
All things considered, memory, process node, GPU and CPU architecture gains, delta color compression, etc etc should make for a sweet HD box at a sweet price.
It would be very small, less prone to hardware failure (at least from an optical drive / heat dissipation perspective), money saved on BoM...basically floor prices console.
As software and services is where it's at, sure it remains to be seen but if it takes off it could also do exceptionally well with/at casuals/families/X-Mas presents, etc etc.

12GB GDDR6 + 1TB SSD for $149-199 only?

$299 seems more likely.

Regarding Scorpio, it cannot deliver locked 1080p60 in all games, especially in open world ones. Lockhart will be a huge upgrade in the CPU department.

But it will also be a downgrade in the GPU (not a big deal if you target 1080p, while Scorpio targets 4K) + lack of physical media (big deal IMHO)... you gain some, you lose some. Lockhart will be perfect for casual/price-conscious consumers. $399 PS5 might seem a tad bit expensive to them (a repeat of the 2013 situation? $399 PS4 vs $499 XB1). 100 dollars can make a difference...

You want everything (CPU, GPU, BD-ROM) with no compromises? Then Anaconda is for you.

 

[Redneckerz]

Cool.

Yeah, you should try it one day!

 

[Shin]

12GB GDDR6 + 1TB SSD for $149-199 only?

$299 seems more likely.

I messed up that post as I was thinking raw power + memory + lower specs, didn't think about the type of medium.
$249 sounds a bit more fair with 299 being on the high side as companies try to tell us that we can use whatever we have already to stream games (Sony, Googe, the older and now defunct companies).
Which is technically true and with that in mind a streaming box as a whole doesn't have much going for it so it shouldn't cost much IMO...but no one wants to lose money so who knows really.

 

[Negotiator]

Regarding the 1TB SSD (apparently the PS5 will have it too), check this out:

https://www.xda-developers.com/samsung-1tb-ufs-chips-mobile-devices/

Does anyone know how much this costs right now? I imagine it's expensive (S10 already costs too much), but it could potentially be much cheaper in late 2020.

NAND prices are expected to drop: https://www.pcworld.com/article/319...dram-will-crash-in-2019-gartner-predicts.html

1 single BGA chip with 1 GB/s transfer rate (in comparison, the 500GB 5400 RPM HDD can reach up to 100 MB/s in the outer tracks)...

Going from laptop to mobile tech of storage will give a whole new meaning to cheap storage.

 

[Supmate]

Welcome!
A good start as it's not some drive by post and hopefully GAF will keep growing with quality posts and people like you've shown.

Cheers bro. Think I prefer to lurk and just add to the debate rather than get involved with spats one way or the other. I got a life but cool to express on some speculation from time to time and btw I am in no way trying to imply Microsoft will make some huge gain over ps4/PS5 by speculating on strategy. It's a good forum and we all wanna know a little bit more. Thanks for the kind welcome

 

[Negotiator]

I messed up that post as I was thinking raw power + memory + lower specs, didn't think about the type of medium.
$249 sounds a bit more fair with 299 being on the high side as companies try to tell us that we can use whatever we have already to stream games (Sony, Googe, the older and now defunct companies).
Which is technically true and with that in mind a streaming box as a whole doesn't have much going for it so it shouldn't cost much IMO...but no one wants to lose money so who knows really.

Lockhart will not be a streaming-only console. If they wanted that, they'd release a cheap PSTV-style box (with a Snapdragon SoC) at $49 max.

It's a waste of money and power to build a 4TF box for streaming purposes...

12GB GDDR6 is not unreasonable, but it won't be dirt cheap either.

 

[Shin]

Lockhart will not be a streaming-only console.

12GB might be around 80+- retail, excl. discount for mass order, not sure how much the NAND crash will be but IIRC I read that vendors got issues and are trying to dump.
Didn't read the article you posted, perhaps it was about that or the fine for the big 4.
The amount of memory is like saying it's a replacement of sort for XB One, I mean 4/6TF if more efficient could be the same in the sense as it's with nVidia/AMD flops.
Don't know too braindead ATM to think that deep so raincheck

 

[onQ123]

Switch portable vs docked mode would like to have a word with you.


10-bit why?

There's INT4, INT8, FP16, FP32 and FP64 (not really useful for gaming apps).

Where did you see 10-bit? Perhaps you got confused with HDR10.

Because it's supported by their software fallback for DirectX 12

 

[DanielsM]

I guess I don't get the 4tf machine at all, I mean I guess if they plan on ditching the S and X, its a low-tier. Also, if the focus is more towards game streaming than you release a $30-50 machine plus a controller say for $100 total. No retailer wants to keep all the skus around (probably telling people what they already know). Sony will probably just release a PS 4 Pro Slim, dump the base slim than release the PS5. 2 skus total. If any of this is true, and suspect some of it isn't though - its very confusing. I think Sony kind of nailed everything as far as marketing and skus, the Pro was kind of risky but not really. I think once you have more than two skus floating around its not good for marketing, the retailers and very confusing to consumer. Just my take.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Because it's supported by their software fallback for DirectX 12

I like how Gen9 graphics out of nowhere supports a fuller 12_1 subset than Pascal. Always had a bit of a soft spot for IGP details, Gen11 is going to be interesting now that it has variable refresh rate, makes low end gaming much more feasible.

 

[Gavon West]

If the cheaper smaller console don't outsell the high end model then what is the point of the cheaper model?

It's cheaper?

Point of entry is more along the sweet spot - price wise - for consoles to sell at high volume with the lower spec'd machine. The beast is for the gaming enthusiast. Only in this scenario, the low end machine will have plenty of power to keep up with the Anaconda minus the resolution difference. Its really quite, quite simple.

 

[Gavon West]

I thought this was whack at first. But if the weaker box has the same processor and memory, it should be able to run the same next gen titles as the more powerful box (~1080p for when Andromeda does 4K, plus any fancy upscaling they have).

Now that I'm thinking of it, a cheap box that runs the same games at 1080p and is diskless could take the next gen by storm if it's substantially cheaper than the PS5.

Exactly this. This is what their aiming for.

 

[DanielsM]

Let's just focus in on the rumor two skus. Microsoft currently has:

Xbox One S (1.4tf) about $200-250 US (you can make get cheaper on sales, the $250 on MS Store with a game bundle)
Xbox One X (6tf) about $400-450 US (same as above)

So, the new two rumor skus would be:

Xbox Two (low-tier) (4tf)
Xbox Two (hight-tier) (12tf)

There is also rumors of a pure thin-client game streaming box. that would potentially be 3 new skus. No way retailers let that in the store, most of them don't even want two.
If this rumor is true, I would have the Xbox One skus get taken off the shelf completely or close to it, the low-tier replaces the X. They'll be lucky to get room for 2 skus at most. So, very similar to the original Xboxs being taken off the shelf shortly after the Xbox 360 was released.

One of the things that is good about consoles is the manufacturers/retailers make it easier for the uninformed to make wiser decision - I think this is still confusing as hell. Microsoft needs to sell a lot more units or their going to lose all their shelf space, most of the gaming companies are anyway. Sub 7m units isn't going to work.

I'm assuming Sony does something like this:

PS4 base -> PS4 Slim -> PS4 Pro -> (maybe a PS4 Pro slim) -> PS5 base -> PS5 Slim -> PS5 Pro

Skus need to disappear when news ones come on board, obviously limited room.

 

[Negotiator]

MS also sells consoles through their own website. Sony doesn't even give you that option.

Who needs retailers the most?

 

[onQ123]

It's cheaper?

Point of entry is more along the sweet spot - price wise - for consoles to sell at high volume with the lower spec'd machine. The beast is for the gaming enthusiast. Only in this scenario, the low end machine will have plenty of power to keep up with the Anaconda minus the resolution difference. Its really quite, quite simple.

Which is so that it would sell better

 

[DanielsM]

MS also sells consoles through their own website. Sony doesn't even give you that option.

Who needs retailers the most?

Well, there is online retailers (that don't care about space quite as much or at all) but let's not fool anyone, traditional retailers are still very important to game console sales. The amount of SKUs is confusing or could be and it doesn't matter how you sell it. imo Or you just go completely the other way, sell it like computers and license it to Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. i.e. Xbox branded PCs, with license Xbox UI.

At what point are you not actually selling a console?

 

[Shin]

I can't help but feel that the weaker* version is too equal to the current Xbox One X and is a cheaper version of said console.
Like it's right in front of our nose and AMD found a way to solve their power gap issues with Navi through Super-SIMD.
12 for 12, 4=6, if it turns out to be like that in the end then it would be quite the step forward, this Beyond3D post is stuck in my head along with the numerous patents AMD filed some years ago.
The timing would be right as well IMO...

 

[Nickolaidas]

Aw maaan … my X1 X is barely two months old and a new X-Box is on the horizon … eh, I'll just wait a couple of years before buying the beast version of it.

 

[Gavon West]

Which is so that it would sell better

You asked what would be the point in the less powerful box. 1080p with all the bells and whistles for $299 would move a lot of hardware for casuals who dont want to spend a hefty amount of cheddar or who dont really care about resolution.

 

[onQ123]

You asked what would be the point in the less powerful box. 1080p with all the bells and whistles for $299 would move a lot of hardware for casuals who dont want to spend a hefty amount of cheddar or who dont really care about resolution.

You completely ignored the post that I was replying to.

 

[CrustyBritches]

I guess I don't get the 4tf machine at all, I mean I guess if they plan on ditching the S and X, its a low-tier...Just my take.

The Xbox One family is tied to last gen dev because of the weak CPUs. A Xbox One X has a powerful enough GPU, but would likely become CPU-bound in many situations. For this reason, the X1 family including the upcoming "Maverick" will stay "last-gen".

The "Lockhart" will probably be disc-less, use cheaper cooling, require less power, etc. It's easy to market "Lockhart" as next-gen for 1080p TV users and "Anaconda" as next-gen for 4K TV users. With Lockhart, just pull up a game on last-gen systems that's CPU-bound and show twice the framerate. I feel framerate and cross-play support will be a bigger deal than just resolution next-gen.

 

[DForce]

DF and other deep analysis have been rising in popularity with the core demographic, but we're not the only demographic. Think of a parent buying a console for their kids, one is 150 dollars cheaper than the others and runs most of the same games, they probably don't give a hoot about how many lines of horizontal resolution it'll fill. A cheaper next gen box could really be lightning in a bottle imo.

I thought it would be a good idea to release a cheaper console to help make the next generation push, but there is something that we're forgetting.

Most games released during the beginning of new new generation are going to have cross-generation releases.

PlayStation 4 Slim - $150
PlayStation 4 Pro - $250 - $300
Xbox One S - $150
Xbox One X - $350 - 400

*These are just guesses.

I think the cheaper console will sell, I have feeling that the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 will still be the most popular *budget* consoles on the market.

I don't think 4K resolution is what MS or Sony will be marketing next generation, I'm sure it will be 60 frames-per-second gameplay, something games will benefit from when going to next generation consoles.

 

[DanielsM]

The Xbox One family is tied to last gen dev because of the weak CPUs. A Xbox One X has a powerful enough GPU, but would likely become CPU-bound in many situations. For this reason, the X1 family including the upcoming "Maverick" will stay "last-gen".

The "Lockhart" will probably be disc-less, use cheaper cooling, require less power, etc. It's easy to market "Lockhart" as next-gen for 1080p TV users and "Anaconda" as next-gen for 4K TV users. With Lockhart, just pull up a game on last-gen systems that's CPU-bound and show twice the framerate. I feel framerate and cross-play support will be a bigger deal than just resolution next-gen.

I guess what I don't get is, you just take the disc drive out of the X, the cost should be $300 or around by late 2020 anyway, you ditch the drive save another $10-25 there.

Xbox One X (low-tier)
Xbox Two (high-tier)

Phase out Xbox One S, over the next 18 months.

What have another SKU and product line when you have one already. Say a Xbox One X Slim.

 

[CrustyBritches]

I guess what I don't get is, you just take the disc drive out of the X, the cost should be $300 or around by late 2020 anyway, you ditch the drive save another $10-25 there.

Phase out Xbox One S, over the next 18 months.

What have another SKU and product line when you have one already. Say a Xbox One X Slim.

I remember that a big reason for Slim/Pro models Sony said was that it reduce manufacturing costs. If Playstation, Xbox, and PC's mid-range all consist of Navi 7nm, then moving everything to that node could be more practical and affordable than producing the UHD, Hovis tuned, vapor chamber cooled 14nm Polaris Xbox One X.

The Xbox One X will be CPU-bound too often, and will be "old" 14nm by then. This is of course taking the 2-tier, 2020 launch rumor at face value.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I thought it would be a good idea to release a cheaper console to help make the next generation push, but there is something that we're forgetting.

Most games released during the beginning of new new generation are going to have cross-generation releases.

PlayStation 4 Slim - $150
PlayStation 4 Pro - $250 - $300
Xbox One S - $150
Xbox One X - $350 - 400

*These are just guesses.

I think the cheaper console will sell, I have feeling that the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 will still be the most popular *budget* consoles on the market.

The difference would be Lockhart would be able to run fully next gen titles, not just cross generation games. If next gen is 500 for the 'main' box and ~150 less for Lockhart, at 350, that would kill the appeal of most of those imo. Why an X when Lockhart also runs all next gen exclusives that require Ryzen and more memory.

 

[onQ123]

I guess what I don't get is, you just take the disc drive out of the X, the cost should be $300 or around by late 2020 anyway, you ditch the drive save another $10-25 there.

Xbox One X (low-tier)
Xbox Two (high-tier)

Phase out Xbox One S, over the next 18 months.

What have another SKU and product line when you have one already. Say a Xbox One X Slim.

Because Xbox One X is still Xbox One & it wouldn't allow devs to take advantage of the new tech that's going to be in Xbox Scarlet.

I'll go out on a limb & say that a Xbox One game in 4K isn't going to look as nice as a Xbox Scarlet game in 1080P

 

[DanielsM]

I remember that a big reason for Slim/Pro models Sony said was that it reduce manufacturing costs. If Playstation, Xbox, and PC's mid-range all consist of Navi 7nm, then moving everything to that node could be more practical and affordable than producing the UHD, Hovis tuned, vapor chamber cooled 14nm Polaris Xbox One X.

The Xbox One X will be CPU-bound too often, and will be "old" 14nm by then. This is of course taking the 2-tier, 2020 launch rumor at face value.

Gotacha. Hm.
Yeah, the Slim is a price reduction, meaning more efficient and less materials, and the customer gets a smaller device as well - and slight adjustment in other design areas.

So, if you guys are right on launch day 2 new SKUs one high and one low, on that date or probably before that they more or less stop shipping Xbox One S and X to the retaiers, I would imagine. Hm, I'm going to have to think about this. It just seems with the low volume numbers splitting it up right at the beginning gives you almost no discount for manufacturer/acquisition of the parts, assuming the volume stays at the average it has been the last 5 years.

Hm, I guess I don't see to much wrong with it, but I think I want to see the retailers face when they tell them they are sending 2 new SKUs for launching the same day, probably not unheard of.

 

[DanielsM]

Because Xbox One X is still Xbox One & it wouldn't allow devs to take advantage of the new tech that's going to be in Xbox Scarlet.

I'll go out on a limb & say that a Xbox One game in 4K isn't going to look as nice as a Xbox Scarlet game in 1080P

Makes sense, I think, I'm going to have to think about this for a bit. LOL

 

[CrustyBritches]

Gotacha. Hm.

Hm, I guess I don't see to much wrong with it, but I think I want to see the retailers face when they tell them they are sending 2 new SKUs for launching the same day, probably not unheard of.

It's all rumor, but this would be about the time we'd see leaks. I would say it's "plausible" on the Mythbusters scale. Fun to speculate either way.

Here's an example of Xbox One X being CPU-bound compared to "basically" the same GPU on PC paired with a superior Ryzen CPU:

Novigrad, Xbox One X running TW3 pre-patch unlocked framerate Xbox base version:


Novigrad, PC RX 480 at 6TF running PS4 settings:


P.S.- I originally thought the Xbox base version was dynamic res and unlocked framerate, in the DF vid they state it's still 900p on Xbox One X, so my comparison isn't fair to the PC, since I ran 1080p instead of 900p. Still shows the impact of CPU on certain titles.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I'm good with console upgrades, maybe it's something to do with iPhone upgrades after all these years that obviously had an impact

 

[Shin]

It's all rumor, but this would be about the time we'd see leaks.

Microsoft will talk about their next-gen console at E3 according to Thurrott / Brad Sams so don't need leaks really.
E3 is 4 months away so it's going to be one heck of a ride, it already is for me as I keep finding myself in a Xbox thread
Not that I had anything against them but the things Xbox division have achieved, fixed and/or improved speaks volume.
Above all else though I'm also confused by all these rumors, leaks, talks and oh man the amount of code names so I'll be happy to be able to put that confusion behind me.

 

[onQ123]

Makes sense, I think, I'm going to have to think about this for a bit. LOL

Microsoft is releasing DirectML in the next few months so you can bet that Scarlet is going to take advantage of Machine Learning & most likely feature a AI processor & GPU that use double rate fp16 maybe even fp8

 

[GlassAwful]

The low tier, high tier concept only makes sense to me in one scenario:

Microsoft wants a high end machine and Navi is struggling to get there as a 4k device so this 12(+) TFs is pushing the tech to the limit and may require another novel cooling method to run at the speeds they need. Doing this results in higher costs and variability in churning out a full bin of useful chips in the manufacturing process....

So... Might as well take advantage of that and produce a low tier model that relies on less functioning CUs per chip, sell that at a lower price with cheaper/less components and you got yourself a potential win/win, a high end console base while leveraging the issues with manufacturing it. I would expect Anaconda to push closer to $550-$600 with Lockhart at $300.

However, this is only a useful strategy if the high tier model is the base and using Lockhart as a XOne family replacement with native backwards compatibility (hopefully at 4k) but also providing "entry level" access to the 12 TF produced Scarlett developed titles via streaming at 1080p.

Otherwise, it seems like you are neutering you high tier model and leaving Sony to swoop in with a much more impressive single console offering at a higher power baseline... Which would be really dumb on MS part.

 

[Shin]

Did he give away a launch month at around 1:10 mark? (Halo Infinite, launch game, 18 months)
It's now February, 10 + 8 = August 2020.

 

[bitbydeath]

I think you're a bit confused here.

ALL games will be written to the metal (as long as they use the DX12 API).

4TF consoles will run DX12 games at 1080p60 (OG PS4 at 2TF targets 1080p30). 12TF consoles will run DX12 games at 4K-ish (true 4K would require 16 TF, since it's 4x compared to 1080p) maybe checkerboard or another reconstruction technique (DLSS-like?) that imitates 4K at 60 fps.

Cerny has already said that you need 8TF to run all current-gen games at 4k 30 fps. True 4K at 60 fps would require double the amount of flops.

What you meant to say is that PS5 exclusives (TLOU2 is not one of them) will have a 12TF baseline.

XB2 exclusives will have a 4TF baseline. 3x difference. PS5 users will get shafted in multiplatform games (sounds like the PS3 era/Cell SPU coding being absent in multiplatform games?). The gap will be huge, no question about that.

Cross-gen games will still be limited by PS4/XB1 specs (1.84 TF and 1.31 TF respectively).

Halo Infinite will be a cross-gen game. Same for TLOU2.

I hope that clears up the confusion.

Let's humour the maths and say you need 4x as everyone is claiming to reach 4K although I don't believe it is that cut and dry.

With a single 12TF device Sony could still set 8TF to a single game and and use the remainder to reach 4K with the checkerboarding technique.

That'd be twice the power due to the limitation of having a low end SKU.

 

[Shin]

bitbydeath A old mod (ThoseDeafMutes) made a very informative post last year about the required power needed to drive 4x the resolution.
According to Cerny 2 years after development starts or prior to launch I forgot which you're "locked in" to final specs, just throwing it out there.

 

[onQ123]

Let's humour the maths and say you need 4x as everyone is claiming to reach 4K although I don't believe it is that cut and dry.

With a single 12TF device Sony could still set 8TF to a single game and and use the remainder to reach 4K with the checkerboarding technique.

That'd be twice the power due to the limitation of having a low end SKU.

But what would be stopping devs from using different techniques like checkerboard rendering with Scarlet?

 

[bitbydeath]

But what would be stopping devs from using different techniques like checkerboard rendering with Scarlet?

Games would be limited to 4TF by default of the low-end. The high-end would be for minor improvements such as resolution boosts and maybe the odd shader improvement.

 

[Paulxo87]

Not sure about the 1tb SSD(don't know enough about prices to have an opinion) but the rest of the high end kit seems within reason for 399-449

 

[onQ123]

Games would be limited to 4TF by default of the low-end. The high-end would be for minor improvements such as resolution boosts and maybe the odd shader improvement.

They could simply make the game at the higher end specs then do whatever is needed to get it running at a good level on the lower end model.