So what is the betting on who blinks first on pricing and when?
MS has already shown their hand. they wont go until july. sony cant afford to go wait that long, even if that is what their plan was.
I think they believe MS is well over $499 and want to see what they will price the series x at. Lockhart is a red herring imo, i dont think it launches on day 1. I think MS threw that out there to make Sony think twice before launching at $499, and downgrade their specs which as we see from the ram bandwidth downgrade, actually kinda worked.
Sony has no choice but to reveal the console and price in June. They kinda screwed themselves by going with a smaller die, and now they simply cant launch at the same pricepoint as Series X. But if Series X is $549 or $599 then they can go with a $500 PS5.
If the PS5 was $399, sony would have zero reservations, but I think that expensive SSD is the reason why Sony is going over $399. the question is how much smaller is that die really. Especially with the repurposed 3D audio CU, those I/O processors, and coherency engines. If it's around 300mm2, they will likely save $20 compared to the Xbox. $40 if the prices have doubled from last gen. How much cheaper is 448GBps ram compared to 560 MS is going with? 25% more bandwidth for 25% more costs? So $25 if PS5 RAM is $100?
But again, MS was smart and only ordered 10 GB of ultra fast ram, and 8 gb of even slower ram. so i bet it cost them the same as Sony. Best case scenario for Sony, their 825GB of SSD costs the same as 1TB of MS SSD. Their RAM costs $25 less and their Chip is around $40 less. Their cooling solution is inexpensive like cerny said so it's likely another $10-15 in savings That's almost $80 in savings that can help them launch $50 cheaper.
Worst case scenario, their ssd is more expensive, their die size is the same, their ram costs are the same and the cooling solution costs only a fraction less than MS's vapor chamber cooling. So they have a console that has 20% less tflops with the same BOM as MS. They will have to launch at $500 and hope for the best.