You keep posting high performance specs for a storage solution that is 2-3x (200-300% more) the price, 3x (300%) the power draw and heat, 5-6x (500-600%) the size and only yields a 25% increase in performance for what is needed. That's the point. It's like comparing a Ferrari to a Mustang. For the space and cost of an NVMe solution Sony could put multiple chips with their own bus and it would perform better in every metric including price. The NVMe controller alone pulls more power than the entire UFS 3.0 solution. Further performance of NVMe as a whole degrades as much as 25% as the solution warms up over the course of 30 mins due to its excessive power draw. After 30 mins, performance of most NVMes becomes erratic or degraded.

He is referencing sequential reads vs random reads. NVMe excels at random reads. UFS excels at sequential. Even at the lowest real world estimates for UFS 3.0 it out paces the highest theoretical performance for NVMe x2 at 1.6-1.8GBps in sequential reads but UFS suffers in random reads. Random reads really benefit exactly from what it sounds like. Unpredictable activity such as launching apps by the end user while sequential reads would be something like 4K video where the information is kept in blocks located close together on the storage media. Again, in a console you do not have a bunch of apps opening. The console has one primary function so it will be relatively easy to manage memory. Even in open world games there is only a finite amount you need to swap into memory at high speed and any load times that would occur would be so minimal that a developer could mask them easily even for something for fast travel. Basically it would enable load times in the single digits if even that for far cheaper and less cost all around and more wattage can be allocated to the GPU or RAM which is vitally important. You wouldn't want an SSD to suck up a significant amount of cost, power, or space at the expense of everything else just to get a second or two less of already low load times. That's what consoles are trade offs because there comes a power where solutions are "good enough" and balance out for the best for the consoles.

This will probably be the last generation of consoles to sell at a loss. There’s no incentive to have physical console market share.

It makes perfect sense when their investments are predominantly services which run on other hardware. It would be different if they were developing a next gen connect or VR or anything else. MS's latest console release is a digital only Xbox, they box could be anything, a PS6/Next-gen Switch. It doesn't matter. MS was never interested in primarily making money of the hardware. They want to sell services because they are a service company. All the things you listed line-up exactly with MS moving to a services only model rather than a console based model. The partnerships with the two biggest hardware console manufacturers lends itself to that model.

No, it would be similar due to the structure. At the base level Microsoft would own the infrastructure necessary to deliver the services for itself and competitors. Meaning Sony and Nintendo would be both competitors and clients in the same sector. Further MS has walled garden as in its own app store. Typically Sony/Nintendo take their royalties from that and use it to offset some of the cost of digital delivery. MS, could either lower their own costs or increase their competitors allowing them to further offer different pricing and undercut their own clients in the same competitive sector. The problem with Apple's store wasn't its existence, it was the fact that it was the only option on Apple products and they charge developers a 30% royalty similar to consoles. Its only a matter of time before consoles are hit with similar suits.

Did you just gloss over the part where if MS succeeds in becoming the de facto cloud infrastructure for gaming they will likely get hit with hundreds of anti-trust lawsuits? Did you miss the part where Apple is fighting similar battles right now with the EU and in the US over just their apps store???

The recent partnership between Sony and Microsoft has brought dramatic questions about the circumstances under which it was formed. Most fans are taking to generate their own narratives, while Bloomberg gives us an intriguing look at what was already occurring behind the scenes.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-was-largely-left-out-of-negotiations-w/1100-6467019/

Negotiations between Microsoft and Sony began in 2018, a spokesperson for Sony said. However, the company has not publicly commented on the claim that the PlayStation team was largely left out of the negotiations.

Bloomberg's story also claims that Sony and Amazon held discussions in 2018 to talk about the potential for a "deeper collaboration on cloud gaming." However, the two sides could not come to terms over the business side, according to a source. After this, Sony apparently started talking to Microsoft. Amazon's Amazon Web Services cloud computing platform powers the PlayStation Network, so Sony and Amazon were already working together. (For what it's worth, Amazon is also reportedly planning its own future game-streaming platform)

The significance of this statement is two fold. Sony has always required a partner to develop its cloud infrastructure and currently partners with Amazon. In attempts to collaborate with Amazon on further cloud development negotiations failed leading to an opportunity for MS and Sony to investigate partnerships. Whatever the terms of the negotiations are they are clearly better than Amazon's. This lends credence to the idea of Sony & MS subsidizing the cost of development but sharing cloud infrastructure rather than a discreet client/customer relationship.

Nintendo, also working with MS implies a very specific future for all three companies where each focuses on their specializations.

Sony, MS, and Nintendo all still continue to operate as game publishers.

Nintendo moves focus back to handheld devices. Leveraging MS cloud technology to close the gap graphically on Sony & MS rather than compete on hardware. This gives room to focus on other realms of innovation rather than power.

Sony continues to offer both a cloud service and traditional console for those who prefer the best image quality and reduced latency. As cloud infrastructure improves this becomes more niche, but still exists as a cloud platform.

Microsoft continues to publish games, however eventually reduces much of its footprint in gaming while providing the backbone and services for various gaming platforms. This is the most reasonable end if Microsoft and cloud gaming is successful for the reasons Bloomberg lists below.

Most analysts agree that, at least in the short-to-medium term, it’s a positive for Sony. Cloud gaming isn’t ready for prime time yet. When Google unveiled Stadia in March, some users reported mixed results including delays in registering actions and reduced graphics quality.

Microsoft may come out an even bigger winner. The Xbox unit continues to churn out games and consoles, but is now increasing focus on ways to sell more cloud software. In March, it announced a lineup of services for game development and cloud hosting that it’s hawking to game companies of all sizes. Landing console king Sony makes it more likely that Azure, and not Amazon or Google, becomes the industry standard for cloud deployment.

Over the long-term, some are warning Sony could be the loser. Currently it charges publishers like Electronic Arts Inc. and Capcom Co. up to 30% of sales made through PlayStation consoles. But if streaming takes off, it will have to compete against Microsoft while paying its rival for cloud access. That could leave Sony struggling to stand out both on technical and pricing terms.

"This move raises some serious questions about its future dominance," said Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors.

It’s also unclear how antitrust regulators will respond to two of the three players in the console market teaming up to develop a key technology, especially as it involves the world’s largest company by market value. Cooperation by the No. 1 and No. 2 in any industry -- say AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. -- to the determent of rivals would likely prompt push-back.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-19/sony-s-deal-with-microsoft-blindsided-its-own-playstation-team

It's for these reasons that the most likely outcome of this partnership and the success of cloud gaming would be for MS to provide the infrastructure of the vast majority of cloud gaming while reducing its own presence in this business model to avoid anti-trust suits. This allows them to generate revenue from Sony, Nintendo, and any other service without needing to produce the platform themselves. The business end of these agreements make sense in the long-run and they could potentially be a scenario in a following generation where consumers purchase Nintendo handhelds to play Sony Playstation Now games streamed from Microsoft's Azure network. A scenario where they are no longer wasting resources competing and focusing on specific elements of the gaming experience they excel at.

Not really, its available now and less than NVMe drives. For context sake we know the OnePlus 7 Pro has 128GB vs 256GB has a price difference of about $30 bucks. It would be a fair assumption to think the 128GB drive is $30 and the 256GB is $60. By contrast a comparable nvme drive is going to run you more than twice that on Newegg. https://www.newegg.com/samsung-960-evo-250gb/p/N82E16820147593

I'm not saying this is definitely it, but it makes the most sense and they could even have a more custom variant with higher performance.

@rzxv04:

No it would be the opposite, it’s a storage media the idea that the processor would be unable to accept a different storage media that’s literally a semi custom design any is simply untrue.

Further any high end SSD is going to be low volume on the PC side. By contrast UFS is ubiquitous to cellphones, Chromebooks etc. as well so the price dramatically drops over time, again ignoring the other benefits of power consumption and space it is a better option at the targeted limitations of a console. There simply isn’t any benefit to use nvme in a console vs UFS 3.0 which is technically faster than nvme on paper.

I'm going to respond to this because they are somewhat related to the PS5.

From the first article:

The manufacturer admits that its LLF is a customized device that is very fast because it is tailored for performance. The memory will cost 10 times less than DRAM, but 20 times more than 3D NAND (at least based on today’s estimates) in terms of per-GB prices, so it will likely be used only by select applications aimed at datacenters or high-end workstations, similar to where Optane and Z-NAND is today.

Again, this is not a balances solution, there comes a point where performance is "good enough" for the price you pay which a next gen flash storage solution is that.

As for the second article it's a software solution not an actual physical solution.

The PS5 is rumored to have similar software which sees all the RAM and cache as a single pool and dynamically allocates workloads where needed. The link is somewhere out there, I'm not interested in exerting the effort to find it.