They are still not making a profit on hardware. They lost money the previous fiscal year on hardware and this fiscal year they are forecasting less losses from hardware but still not profit.
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I remember the internet narrative being formed that they made a profit after the first 6 months because of one quote from Sony "Forecasting" that they would turn a profit within the next year, ignoring all the price increases from Covid and that the market never truly settled.
Because TSMC is charging a lot more for newer process nodes.
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This is a major factor, I would think
The ps5 had went from 7 down to 6 and I also think it stayed on 6nm for the slim.
Was it the df look over of the Sony docs, that had them thinking that the pro would also be 6nm as well and that this indicated lack of a lower node availability and/or cost ? (Based on clock frequencies and other bits in the Sony doc)
So no cost reductions on node shrinks and reworking the console for less power, smaller parts. Plus I would think memory and component prices aren't dropping by much, even as the tech ages out (memory, ssd chips, and ram caches that are also not being 'shrunk')
So like the ps4 & pro. They might gets changes here and there. But a major cost reduction will probably be what we have seen already. With temp cuts that eat the possibly already slim profits of the regular cost (and then there is just inflation increases all over the supply pipeline)
Then you have the companies who get or will pay or get priority in the queue for chips from tmsc and the latest node. You would think nvidia and apple will crush or out pay amd (and that impacts on console chips)
Amd will also have a list of priority products, so Sony and Microsoft have to deal with that side (see the previous 'availability' of products around console launches or sales forecasts) and not being able to secure what they want, even with contracts being signed with amd to supply the chips many years ago
I miss the days of a ps1/2 for £99 or the n64 taking a monster price drop a couple of months after its launch. but that just what happens with new tech now I guess (and that people are willing to pay more, or go for inflated scalper prices)
But remember that N6 is just an improvement over N7. They are essentially, the same node.
It's N5 that is the real new node.
different times. also had lots of games, so maybe they got more money from licensing than hardware. also the hardware simpler and sold as a cheap DVD player. Very different times and consoles.The PS2 sold like water in desert and it got multiple price cuts.
No point in cutting the price until sales slow down
Because TSMC is charging a lot more for newer process nodes.
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But PS5 is on 6nm which is a more cost-efficient 7nm. Basically, this chart isn't reflective of pricing issues for the PS5's APU/SOC; 6nm isn't even here and if it were it would probably show the same flat YOY rates as 7nm and 5nm.
N6 is a derivation of N7. So it's cost per wafer is probably very similar.
The advantage of N6 is that is has a 15% area reduction. So it's possible to extract more chips per wafer, lowering costs by a similar margin.
We also know that the defect rate for N7, N6 are similar, at around 0.09 per cm². N5 is a just slightly higher, at 0.1.
Right, so if it's 15% area reduction, using the same wafer sizes then Sony are saving 15% in wafer costs, all things considered. Not that they are "saving" 15% due to keeping same wafer capacity, it's just on the wafer front they're getting 15% more value out of each one when it comes to the cost.
It's more likely that costs aside from the wafers are what would make production costs more expensive vs. 2021/2022 to impact a rush for global price drops. The RAM costs may not be any different, for example. PCB costs are maybe not too much cheaper, the custom ASIC for I/O could be the same price, shell casing components same costs etc. Not to mention the costs relative rates of inflation.
In hindsight it is amazing what developers were able to get out of the PS2. It wasn't even special in 2000.PS2 went from using 250nm to 90nm lithography in that timespan, that's 4 full node shrinks or so. PS4 got 1 (28nm > 16nm). PS5 may very well end up not getting a single full node shrink during its lifespan.
It is. They're behind ps4 which should have gotten one in 2019 to reach mass market price and far behind where they could be. So far less software and sub sales and harder to get exclusivity deals because of a smaller install base. Now luckily for them the competition is even worse this gen AND since their price of manufacturing hasn't gone down to where they could be profitable at $400 for the popular model they're doing ok.Times are different. There is less pressure because other companies arent cutting their prices..they are all preserving the launch price, and it's not negatively impacting sales. So they have no reason to do it at this juncture..
I think the cost of the SoC chip was around 50-60 dollars. So if there is a reduction in cost of 15%, that means it saves 8-9$ per chip at N6.
Its not much in a console that costs 400-500$. It helps making the console more cost effective. But it's not the kind of thing that makes a huge difference to make a big reduction in price.
N6 barely improves on ISO power. So there is no savings in the power delivery system. Sony did redesign the cooling system, but was because it was more efficient. Not because the console was producing much less heat.
A reduction to N5, could mean, not only more chips out of a wafer. But also a simpler power delivery system and cooling, which then translate into cost savings.