And is it even economically viable for Sony or Microsoft to make them?
In fact, in the current climate, inflation makes the consoles more expensive to make.
It’s a far cry from the cost reductions we’ve seen in the past.
“Series S has been very impactful for us.
“We are facing a big change in how consoles are designed.
Progress in chip manufacturing technology is progressing - 6nm, 5nm and even 3nm nodes are looking good.
However, there’s a problem: shrinking a chip no longer comes hand-in-hand with a cheaper chip.
For the first time, we had to have the entry-level console at the beginning.
That’s not there anymore.”
The image above shows the situation as it was in the last generation.
With PS4 and Xbox One launching in 2013 at 28nm, we saw a pair of fairly large processors.
You’ll note that generally speaking, the 16nm enhanced processors were of similar size to the 28nm originals.
The reduction in cost-per-transistor made a $399 PlayStation 4 Pro possible.
Now, what if cost-per-transistor remains static?
Beyond that price, the concept of a console as a mainstream product doesn’t begin to make sense.
The reality is that Microsoft’s gamble on Series S has paid off.
CPU, GPU and even storage have barely been explored.
AMD’s Zen 3 and Zen 4 CPUs look like a considerable improvement over the consoles' Zen 2.
