Sony Is Struggling With PlayStation 5 Price Due to Costly Parts

That is surprising to me. I feel no need to go 4k as of yet. I've toyed with it but the wife is against it as well. Sigh...

It's mostly just getting a new TV, not because they actually cared about 4k. These days, all but small and very inexpensive TVs just are 4k. You buy a 55" TV (the most popular size) and you are hard pressed to find one that isn't 4k. Even a bargain basement Chinese government brand (Hisense is owned by the Chinese government) $280 55" TV is 4k.

So I don't think tons of people are really going out saying "man I need to get 4k!" rather they just want a bigger TV, or newer TV, or a TV for another room and it just happens to be that the TV they get is 4k.
 
The console vs PC build price comparison is mostly meaningless. You have to buy a new console as a whole, while most already own a PC and just need to upgrade. More often than not, just the GPU, as many CPUs and memory configurations from the past half a decade are good enough. Hence, consoles will hardly ever be more affordable for the same performance, just more convenient and game exclusive.

Indeed.. but I think it's mostly meaningless because most of us here that buy consoles also have gaming PCs anyways, if just for their exclusives and some other ancillary benefits (ease of use - stability/consistancy, media playback - streaming and DVD/BD playback, etc.). At least that's the only reason I bought all my consoles and will happily do it again if their exclusives continue to be better than most of the PC games I play. The Sony and Nintendo exclusives I've played the past several years definitely have been some of my favorite games of all time and are easily worth the price of admission of the consoles for their experience, and for how cheap you can get them (esp. used) now, the value they offer for those quality titles is stellar to me, esp. given that most of the PS4 exclusives can be had for $5-$20 new now.
 
The problem is wages have stagnated and people are predicting a recession 2020 this year. Assuming bad things happen, the PS5 and Xbox Series X couldn't come out at a worse time. You can increase the cost all you want but if nobody buys it then what?

Microsoft and Sony also can't start work on products wondering if there might be a recession years later. They had to lock in certain details a while back, and those components are going to carry a certain price. They can't just say "oh, the economy went downhill, let's switch from an SSD to a spinning hard drive to keep the price low." They might have a chance to absorb some of the cost in the short term, but they're not going to bleed cash if they can at all avoid it.

I had both a SSD and HDD in my machines and most of my games are installed in the HDD, and my loading time is just fine. People have put SSD's into consoles to get them to run faster as well. The issue is what do you do when the SSD is full? At some point you'll need to use an external drive, which will defiantly be slower than what these consoles will have. Or better yet, have a second M.2 slot so people can stick another SSD in the machine. Having a faster SSD is not going to make a huge difference but a bigger SSD will.

This is very... short-sighted. Many games have lengthy load times due to the sheer amount of content they need to load -- Destiny 2 is a good example. And while you can speed things up by adding an SSD, there's a big difference between merely including an SSD and developing games optimized for it. Including an NVMe-based SSD (I'm guessing that's what Microsoft and Sony are using) means you can have sprawling game worlds that load seamlessly; you can have higher-resolution textures, more objects, more detail. For that matter, it simply cuts out a lot of the frustration for gamers.

Don't get me wrong, I'm hoping that the PS5 and Xbox Series X will have meaningful SSDs of 1TB or more, but I would much rather have faster drives than capacity at all costs. Bigger SSDs merely let you store more games; faster SSDs fundamentally change how developers design games. And if I'm going to upgrade from a PS4 or Xbox One, I want to see those kinds of leaps forward rather than incremental updates. This console has to last several years. Prices will drop and capacities will go up, but design decisions like this will stick with a console for its entire lifetime.
 
Last edited:
I want them to have two expandable drive slots on these consoles. Where they can sell you larger capacity drives and just slot it in and move your data to it retiring the older drive or using it as well as additional storage. Where you can move data off when you need to expand. Some there where users don't need to crack the case.
 
1. You don't have to upgrade every year, just every console cycle to keep ahead of them.
2. You don't have to buy a card at the price of a console to get the same performance.

If you're only gaming the cost of a pc is higher than the cost of a console. That is a simple fact. Next Gen consoles might be just streaming devices rather than dedicated hardware for gaming. (maybe two models one that is streaming only and one that is hardware based for rural areas.)
 
I want them to have two expandable drive slots on these consoles. Where they can sell you larger capacity drives and just slot it in and move your data to it retiring the older drive or using it as well as additional storage. Where you can move data off when you need to expand. Some there where users don't need to crack the case.

Based on the rumors of Xbox, the internal SSD will not be removable, because it is likely to use concepts such as HBCC to stream directly from SSD to GPU bypassing RAM/main memory

There might be 2 external options

1. Regular USB
2. external card slot for NVMe based Compact Flash Express SSDs (speed could be PCIx3 but still benefit from HBCC)
 
You can't conclude that from Tflops, especially not AMD<->Nvidia.


You can extrapolate based on current Navi performance that at 12 tflops it will be around 2080-2080 super performance. Current Navi is 9.75tflop and a 20-25% bump puts it squarely in competition with the 2080/2080 super. Assuming they can keep memory bandwidth high enough as Navi is bandwidth hungry.
 
If you're only gaming the cost of a pc is higher than the cost of a console. That is a simple fact. Next Gen consoles might be just streaming devices rather than dedicated hardware for gaming. (maybe two models one that is streaming only and one that is hardware based for rural areas.)
Initial cost of a gaming PC can be higher than a console, but over the lifetime of a gaming console the latter will dwarf the former.
 
If you're only gaming the cost of a pc is higher than the cost of a console. That is a simple fact.
It's not, though, unless you buy a whole PC each time you upgrade a GPU.

You can extrapolate based on current Navi performance that at 12 tflops it will be around 2080-2080 super performance. Current Navi is 9.75tflop and a 20-25% bump puts it squarely in competition with the 2080/2080 super. Assuming they can keep memory bandwidth high enough as Navi is bandwidth hungry.
About right, true. Still, the 2080 doesn't have to compete for power and heat with a CPU, and we still don't know how RDNA2 scales with Tflops. Plus, we will be at next gen for PC GPUs by then, so probably console = PC midrange as usual.
 
For me personally, 3d games don't survive the test of time very well. It always sounds like such a good idea but the truth is I dont think most people play old games for long or will spend money on it.
Well yes and no. Some games do hold up but many do not. I think if we are talking about Xbox 360 or later, they are still okay.

For example, I was playing the original F.E.A.R. game which came out in 2005 and it holds up (I also started Condemned also from 2005 and the graphics are fine).

But if you are talking about PS1 era games, maybe that would be too far. But they could probably do a lot to upgrade the graphics and possibly make them playable.
 
In what way?

I've (happily) dropped probably close to 2k on my current setup. How on earth could I have spent $2000 with an Xbox one x?

At 2k, you likely bought 1k worth of crap you didnt need if you are talking strictly gaming. I get this argument from people all the time that need a stupid expensive CPU cooler, the best processor money can buy, the best graphics card, gigantic SSDs, 32gb of ram, etc. Either way, games are generally more expensive on consoles including the DLC plus the monthly subscription. PC games go on sale a lot more often and also have better replay when you factor in mods... if you dont need/want a game right when it is released it really takes no time at all to get it on sale at a significant price reduction. This is also not factoring in pirating if you are into that. Ive played a lot of games that are absolute junk and I learned my lesson early on - pirate to try it out, buy it if I like it.

My buddy uses the Gamestop argument to justify high game prices for his consoles and its retarded. Buy a game for $60-70 and sell it to Gamestop for $11... ya, ok.

I havent updated my computer in my sig in 5 years or so and it still games at 1080p... looking to upgrade my video card soon and then Ill ride out the rest of the system for another year until I go with whatever Ryzen processor is the best bang for the buck.
 
Well yes and no. Some games do hold up but many do not. I think if we are talking about Xbox 360 or later, they are still okay.

For example, I was playing the original F.E.A.R. game which came out in 2005 and it holds up (I also started Condemned also from 2005 and the graphics are fine).

But if you are talking about PS1 era games, maybe that would be too far. But they could probably do a lot to upgrade the graphics and possibly make them playable.

Yeah, even PS2 games looked pretty terrible. FFX, as a key example, barely moved the tech specs forward: the PS2 has "real-time lighting" but all you see is a bunch of prerendered lighting using lightmaps. And they're so sensitive about this they don't even let you change camera angle while exploring dungeons.

Feels exactly like I'm playing FF7, except now the "Prerendered 2D background" is now a "prerendered lightmap 3d background."

Most of the PS2 library is pretty clunky (comparerd to it's competitoon). The only place FFX could look at-ll decent was cutscenes.
 
Well yes and no. Some games do hold up but many do not. I think if we are talking about Xbox 360 or later, they are still okay.

For example, I was playing the original F.E.A.R. game which came out in 2005 and it holds up (I also started Condemned also from 2005 and the graphics are fine).

But if you are talking about PS1 era games, maybe that would be too far. But they could probably do a lot to upgrade the graphics and possibly make them playable.
Resolution alone does wonders. Using the FFX example from above setting the internal resolution to HQ4X and higher does wonders for the way the game looks. Doubly so with PSX games considering those games were often rendered at 320x240 or even less. They could go the Xbox One route and increase the resolution the games run at for backward compatibility and that would be enough.
 
Right, it should be no problem getting to 1080p, and I bet 4K is a possibility. Improved texture filtering, perspective correct texture-mapping, anti-aliasing, maybe some texture upsampling, image sharpening. I mean there is a lot they can do after the fact.
 
You can't conclude that from Tflops, especially not AMD<->Nvidia.


This is from actual developers working on the machine, repeated by multiple very different leakers including the unlikely Jason Schreier.

Around 2080super sounds pretty good, yes both are expected to sell at a loss, 500-550$ price matched consoles, atm series x is less than 10% higher cpu and 10% higher gpu performance than the ps5, ps5 ssd is up to 25% faster but honestly we won't notice that difference ( series x expects 1gbps less than the ps5), ram is gddr6 16gb and almost a wash. This is the current situation.

Yes Nvidia will have their newest cards out by the time the consoles come out, most average joes won't mind much.
 
Unless you just give people access to a free DL if they enter the serial number on their disk. You'd think it would be pretty simple to do, but it probably won't happen.

Also, does anyone really want to go back and play PS1 / PS2 games at this point? All the good ones have HD remakes on newer machines that you can buy for pennies.
What serial numbers on the disc? Also it wouldn't be Sony's call since I am sure publishers would have a issue with it.
At 2k, you likely bought 1k worth of crap you didnt need if you are talking strictly gaming. I get this argument from people all the time that need a stupid expensive CPU cooler, the best processor money can buy, the best graphics card, gigantic SSDs, 32gb of ram, etc. Either way, games are generally more expensive on consoles including the DLC plus the monthly subscription. PC games go on sale a lot more often and also have better replay when you factor in mods... if you dont need/want a game right when it is released it really takes no time at all to get it on sale at a significant price reduction. This is also not factoring in pirating if you are into that. Ive played a lot of games that are absolute junk and I learned my lesson early on - pirate to try it out, buy it if I like it.

My buddy uses the Gamestop argument to justify high game prices for his consoles and its retarded. Buy a game for $60-70 and sell it to Gamestop for $11... ya, ok.

I havent updated my computer in my sig in 5 years or so and it still games at 1080p... looking to upgrade my video card soon and then Ill ride out the rest of the system for another year until I go with whatever Ryzen processor is the best bang for the buck.
It is not true anymore. Console games can be found discounted a month after release regularly. Maybe not the digital version but I prefer to buy physical anyway. I don't get why people are even so apprehensive paying $60 for a game day one. If you want to support a developer it is the best way.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: T4rd
like this
Right, it should be no problem getting to 1080p, and I bet 4K is a possibility. Improved texture filtering, perspective correct texture-mapping, anti-aliasing, maybe some texture upsampling, image sharpening. I mean there is a lot they can do after the fact.
don't forget AI-texture upscaling, I think this is from FFIX on PSX: (click on thumbnail for animated gif)

jbhpQZLoeWwNdmqsEq94Je-650-80.gif

https://www.pcgamer.com/modders-are...ered-ps1-backgrounds-with-phenomenal-results/
 
That is fair. not long ago I was super excited to sit down and play some mario kart 64 again, but after playing the switch version a few times, I was not able to enjoy it as much. I miss the controls and play style for sure, but the graphics needed some love. Goldeneye was best left to my memories lol.

God help me Goldeneye is now unplayable and that was one of the games that defined my youth.
 
What serial numbers on the disc? Also it wouldn't be Sony's call since I am sure publishers would have a issue wit

It is not true anymore. Console games can be found discounted a month after release regularly. Maybe not the digital version but I prefer to buy physical anyway. I don't get why people are even so apprehensive paying $60 for a game day one. If you want to support a developer it is the best way.


I dont want to support a trash developer though... its the same reason I refuse to jump into micro transactions unless its a smaller developer that has gone above and beyond to make something that people thoroughly enjoy.

If consoles/console games seamlessly supported keyboard and mouse (and games played like their PC counterparts basically) then I may actually be down to get a next gen console. I cant deal with the clunkiness of a controller anymore unless the game is something like Batman Arkham City or The Witcher 3... I prefer keyboard and mouse for everything else.
 
Tengis hold on, your argument is that a computer is less expensive than a console because your friend can’t be bothered to wait for sales? And because your system hasn’t been upgraded in 5 years?

did your pc cost you more than $500? If so, it cost more than a console. Unless you’re only playing free games or waiting until everything is on sale for $1 on steam, money spent on games for either platform isn’t going to be noticeably different. If you’d bought all your games new at release you’d have spent the same as your friend.

I haven’t paid full price for a single game on my Xbox one s or ps4 slim. Well, not full price over like $20 at least. The Xbox cost me $200 new and the ps4 was $250 I think?

I like playing games on pc as much as anyone here but let’s not pretend that a gaming capable pc costs less than a console.

(Unless that console is $800+, in which case I would still argue that the console will have a longer useful life than the PC without upgrades over the same timespan.)
 
Well PS3 ($499 and $599) and PS4 pro (~ $400) were not cheaply retail priced at release. If you wait to buy older pc hardware or buy used pc hardware you can get it cheaper just like a console 2 - 3 years after it's release or used of course so that's not really an apples to apples comparison.

So say a release price of $400 - $500.. Then add some controllers, a few playstation move/motion controller wands, a charging station (maybe one for gamepads and another for wands), motion capture camera, rock band kits and track sets, dance game track sets, a typing keyboard for your controller perhaps, and up until recently a lot of high priced games. You might also want a decent set of headphones with microphone and maybe a multimedia remote. You might also want to upgrade the hard drive. Also if you are setting up it's own stand alone play area you might need to buy at least a small to medium sized tv, and if you want good sound without headphones you might want some tv speakers. You also might want to buy a playstation VR headset and/or a decent steering wheel with pedals and shifter like a logitech g29 or something. Considering HDR support in console games in the current gen and in the next gen high hz + variable hz support you might upgrade your TV once or during each gen also since yours likely doesn't support that fully (hdmi 2.1 , real HDR capability, etc).

That's still not as much as you might spend on a higher end pc with an expensive high end gpu and monitor(s) but it's not cheap either so the gap narrows. You can keep a lot more peripherals , case, psu, drives, etc between pc builds which can help a little, and you can sometimes get away with the same motherboard, ram and cpu through a few different video cards even if you skip a gpu generation as long as you bought a higher end cpu to start with. This is especially true since factory overclocks haven't increased all that much and a lot of games only use a 1 - 2 cores, and of course gpu slots haven't changed much where cpu sockets and ram does more often.
 
Last edited:
I dont want to support a trash developer though... its the same reason I refuse to jump into micro transactions unless its a smaller developer that has gone above and beyond to make something that people thoroughly enjoy.

If consoles/console games seamlessly supported keyboard and mouse (and games played like their PC counterparts basically) then I may actually be down to get a next gen console. I cant deal with the clunkiness of a controller anymore unless the game is something like Batman Arkham City or The Witcher 3... I prefer keyboard and mouse for everything else.
Never said to support trash developers. There are plenty still out their the deserve the $60 day 1 purchase. Usually a trash developer wouldn't even get a dime from me. I don't day 1 buy every game that interested me but there are a few developers I would just about anything they release.
 
I can't help but think how cool it would be if Microsoft offered the chance to use the Series X as a regular PC as well. Like maybe it would be a Windows in S mode, so limit it to only Microsoft Store apps, but having full PC functionality would be a cool side feature that maybe people could pay to unlock. Just thinking back to the PS3 and how you were able to load Linux on it.
 
I can't help but think how cool it would be if Microsoft offered the chance to use the Series X as a regular PC as well. Like maybe it would be a Windows in S mode, so limit it to only Microsoft Store apps, but having full PC functionality would be a cool side feature that maybe people could pay to unlock. Just thinking back to the PS3 and how you were able to load Linux on it.
Won't happen. Piracy would be too much of a concern. It is why they removed Linux from the PS3 when a work around was found to pirate games on PS3.
 
Won't happen. Piracy would be too much of a concern. It is why they removed Linux from the PS3 when a work around was found to pirate games on PS3.
That had more to do with the PS3 being a loss-leader product, and when PS3 units are solely being purchased for Linux and/or compute functions, Sony was starting to lose money hand over fist on those units since none of the costs were being regained from the lack of software being purchased on said units.
The "piracy" concern, that you mentioned, was completely overblown, as it was Sony's PR reasoning for axing that functionality (rather than just stating the above), and eventually they were sued in court, and legally lost for disabling it, thus making PS3 units with older firmware with that capability remain completely legal.

Also, the PS3 hypervisor has natively disabled any hardware acceleration with the NVIDIA GPU in the unit, and the GPU itself acts solely as a framebuffer.
Thus, all 2D and 3D graphics must be rendered by the PPE (or 6 remaining and available SPE units, but software must be written specifically for these).

All these years later, there has been some progress on getting certain aspects of the 3D acceleration working on the GPU from within the PS3 hypervisor, but it is extremely limited and experimental at best.
This has also been done with the PS4, only this time it was natively (not through a limited hypervisor), and the performance of it would have, at best, been a mid-range desktop circa 2014.

Granted, the PS5 has (allegedly) vastly more powerful hardware, but even so, there would have to be numerous software modifications to both the OS kernel and software being deployed in order for it to function properly, and take advantage of said hardware.
Remember, just because these consoles are running x86-64 CPUs, doesn't mean they are PCs (IBM-compatible).
 
My XBO is fairly old, from before the refresh, but is actually one of the quieter ones, which isn't really quiet. The heatsink fan is really low quality and makes a rattling/vibrating sound, which only gets worse when gaming. My PS4 Pro is ridiculously loud when gaming.
OK. Mine is a bit over a year old and I don't hear it, but it's at least 5 feet away from me and my ears aren't what they once were. I guess I'll crank it up tomorrow and sit next to it.
 
I don't think anyone is going to scoff at $599. I know I won't, but then I get what kinda hardware they're pushing. I'll do $699 if it has more storage/extra controller/game thrown in with only a slight hesitation. We're a 3x Gaming PC + Dual Nintendo Switch household for reference. I think $300 for the Switch is freaking insane on the flip side (today).
 
I don't think anyone is going to scoff at $599. I know I won't, but then I get what kinda hardware they're pushing. I'll do $699 if it has more storage/extra controller/game thrown in with only a slight hesitation. We're a 3x Gaming PC + Dual Nintendo Switch household for reference. I think $300 for the Switch is freaking insane on the flip side (today).
You won't scoff at $600 but most people can't afford to buy a console for that much, let alone multiple consoles and PCs. At $700 you might as well get a PC instead. Before I said the economy was expected to crash this year and you already see the stock market failing. Having an expensive console is bad timing for consoles this year.
 
You won't scoff at $600 but most people can't afford to buy a console for that much, let alone multiple consoles and PCs. At $700 you might as well get a PC instead. Before I said the economy was expected to crash this year and you already see the stock market failing. Having an expensive console is bad timing for consoles this year.

You say that, but entire families of people that have a collective income less than 40k all have $1200 phones. All Sony has to do is figure out financing with interest and those that celebrate debt would be all over it.
 
https://bgr.com/2020/02/28/ps5-price-range-500-not-enough-should-be-more-expensive/amp/


In a recent thread on Reddit titled simply “Unpopular opinion,” a user made an interesting claim. “I’d rather have a powerful system at launch costing around let’s say $600 and lasting me the whole generation than a weaker one for a lower price and then having them launch a ‘pro version’ because the weaker system didn’t age well,” he or she wrote.

Well, it turned out that opinion wasn’t unpopular at all. The PS5 subreddit doesn’t get much traffic these days, but hundreds of people still popped up to up-vote the post and add comments
 
You won't scoff at $600 but most people can't afford to buy a console for that much, let alone multiple consoles and PCs. At $700 you might as well get a PC instead. Before I said the economy was expected to crash this year and you already see the stock market failing. Having an expensive console is bad timing for consoles this year.
I agree that 600 is too high, but I'm not so sure about the economy crashing. It could if Carona is really bad, but I don't think we can draw conclusions about the stock market. The market isn't the economy. And it's going down because it was priced for perfection and now we have a big unkown with Corona. The good news is even if it drops 20%, most shares you own (unless you bought everything last year) will still be in the black.. Now if this turns into 2008, it's going to be awful, because the fed has far fewer tools than they had in 2008. I hope it's not that bad, because if it is, it probalby means 3 million people are going to die.. Ah WTH, buy a console (from the web) and play games, because you don't want to go outside with all those sick people roaming the streats ;)
 
https://bgr.com/2020/02/28/ps5-price-range-500-not-enough-should-be-more-expensive/amp/


In a recent thread on Reddit titled simply “Unpopular opinion,” a user made an interesting claim. “I’d rather have a powerful system at launch costing around let’s say $600 and lasting me the whole generation than a weaker one for a lower price and then having them launch a ‘pro version’ because the weaker system didn’t age well,” he or she wrote.

Well, it turned out that opinion wasn’t unpopular at all. The PS5 subreddit doesn’t get much traffic these days, but hundreds of people still popped up to up-vote the post and add comments

Except this won't happen. I have no doubt both console makers were more than happy to put out a more powerful version just so they could get people to upgrade. That's just extra money. Until a more powerful refresh version becomes widely unpopular and doesn't sell at all they'll probably continue to do it. It allows them to stretch out the life of that generation of console which is money in their pockets and extra money from people buying two consoles to get the more powerful one after having already purchased an original.

Release at $600 with a supposedly more powerful console and later on down the road they'll release an upgraded version for $700 because some people will simply buy it. Look at the number of people in this thread saying they're more than willing to shell out $500 or $600 or more for a new console before they can even see what it does or what games will be like.
 
Except this won't happen. I have no doubt both console makers were more than happy to put out a more powerful version just so they could get people to upgrade. That's just extra money. Until a more powerful refresh version becomes widely unpopular and doesn't sell at all they'll probably continue to do it. It allows them to stretch out the life of that generation of console which is money in their pockets and extra money from people buying two consoles to get the more powerful one after having already purchased an original.

Release at $600 with a supposedly more powerful console and later on down the road they'll release an upgraded version for $700 because some people will simply buy it. Look at the number of people in this thread saying they're more than willing to shell out $500 or $600 or more for a new console before they can even see what it does or what games will be like.

We live in the world of $400 "mid-range" video cards now. Somebody run the inflation numbers on console releases? I bet $600 is nothing these days when it comes to purchasing power.

*edit*

I never even sniffed at Xbox/PS3/PS4 because I could easily put that money into a video card on a 5 year old PC and have a better gaming experience. (esp with the vast Steam library already collected)
 
We live in the world of $400 "mid-range" video cards now. Somebody run the inflation numbers on console releases? I bet $600 is nothing these days when it comes to purchasing power.

*edit*

I never even sniffed at Xbox/PS3/PS4 because I could easily put that money into a video card on a 5 year old PC and have a better gaming experience. (esp with the vast Steam library already collected)

The problem isn't purchasing power, it's the value people think the "widget" is worth and are willing to pay for it vs. not.
 
Back
Top