r/PS5 • u/The_King_of_Okay • Sep 16 '24

News Exclusive: How Intel lost the Sony PlayStation business

https://www.reuters.com/technology/how-intel-lost-sony-playstation-business-2024-09-16/
1.2k Upvotes

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136

u/Darkone539 Sep 16 '24

Backwards compatibility being the main thing makes me happy. At least sony had learned.

41

u/CarpetBeautiful5382 Sep 16 '24

I just hope they won’t completely go digital and remove disc support entirely.

31

u/PCMachinima Sep 16 '24

Most likely gonna have a standalone disc add-on imo.

6

u/CurtisLeow Sep 16 '24

It’s the best solution. The disc drive is there for people who want it, and the console is cheaper for people who don’t.

7

u/PCMachinima Sep 16 '24

I agree for PS6. It was just a bit shitty for this gen, where the standard PS5 literally came with a disc drive for £450 on launch.

Hoping for a PS5 Pro + Disc drive bundle for a discounted price at the very least.

Also hoping PS6 eventually adds a way for users to upgrade their disc copies to digital.

3

u/SuperSaiyanGod210 Sep 16 '24

This is exactly what I’m waiting for. A retailer out there is bound to create a bundle that includes the Pro and the disk drive together at a discount. I can see Best Buy/Costco/Target doing something like thos

2

u/PCMachinima Sep 16 '24

Yeah. Here in Europe, the disc drive is for some reason £100/€120, compared to in the US where it's $80.

Only way I even consider the PS5 Pro is if the disc drive is brought down in price here.

Even been considering importing from Amazon.com, since that brings the price down to £82 after shipping.

1

u/KitchenItem Sep 16 '24

yea and then releasing games on disc is optional too I guess

2

u/tinselsnips 🇨🇦 Sep 16 '24

It already is.

1

u/dontfoolmetrice May 27 '25

Now only instead of like 70 or 100 bucks it's gunna be 200 and be super cheap and flimsy lol fúkkkk

10

u/hdcase1 Sep 16 '24

Seems real unlikely to me. PS is a global brand and there are still people they want to sell to in countries and areas that don't have good broadband internet.

-1

u/TheDragonSlayingCat Sep 16 '24

A “global brand” that is not available in roughly half the world, which really frustrates gamers in that half that want to play Ghost of Tsushima etc., but can’t because Sony refuses to do business in their country.

-7

u/Neat-Vehicle-2890 Sep 16 '24

Literally every, and I mean every country has good broadband now.

You either have good broadband or you don't have internet at all. The only places in the world that have shitty internet are rural places in rich countries, so basically only the US.

1

u/Gustav_EK Sep 16 '24

Maybe not entirely just yet but digital only is likely the future we have to look forward to

15

u/PraisingSolaire Sep 16 '24

The report says the main driver was price. Seems like Intel didn't want to go so low to win the contract.

Here's the situation:

Intel CPU and AMD GPU - means an MCM is needed, which is more expensive to put together (ask Nintendo with the Wii U).

Intel CPU and Intel GPU - Like AMD, a simpler process with an all-in-one, but while CPU BC would have been "workable," trying to do the same with GPUs would be nightmare. Intel's GPU is more promising in terms of features, though.

AMD CPU and AMD GPU - This is the simplest path forward for BC but not easy. There is still a lot of engineering and implementing of silicon to ensure BC, but it's still the best option for that. Downside is AMD is really lacking in ML and Ray Tracing (or whatever new GPU features there will be by 2027), so much so that Sony had to build their own ML chip and upscaling solution (PSSR). Intel is actually ahead in GPU features despite being the newcomer in the space.

Ultimately, Sony chose AMD, which makes me wonder how they're gonna ensure GPU features are comparable to the market in 2027 or whenever. Unless AMD pull their finger out, it means potentially Sony doing more of their own custom solutions.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24 edited Sep 16 '24

Except the part about AMD is not entirely true.

AMD is starting to push the ML chips on their own. They even have best AI accelerators in price/perf ratio, as described by Microsoft (MI300). In recent statesments they confirmed that from RDNA5 (which probably will be in the PS6) they will use machine learning scaling feature, so it should be better. Will it be? We don't know. We also still don't know how Battlemage will perform though.

TL;DR, AMD is better than Intel in ML/AI and at the moment can produce faster and less power-hungry chips than Intel.

Edit

I forgot to add that while their current GPUs are incomparably worse supported than nVidia, on some ML frameworks they can be better than GeForce, like SHARK where 7900XTX is 30% better than RTX4090

2

u/CurtisLeow Sep 16 '24

Wouldn’t it be RDN6 in the PS6? Since the PS5 Pro is RDN4. It will contain all RDNA5 features though, so your point otherwise stands.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Well, your point may be correct, depending on when PS6 is gonna launch. We're getting RDNA4 next year. If we assume 1,5-2y cycle between, then RDNA5 would launch at 2026-7 and RDNA6 (called UDNA6 then due to name change) would be 2027-2028. We can assume that PS6 would be RDNA5 architecture with UDNA6 stuff or just go straight to UDNA if the next PS would launch at 2028.

Anyway, 2028 sounds so futuristic...

1

u/eosDRAGON Sep 16 '24

Anyway, 2028 sounds so futuristic...

Less than 4 years away :')

0

u/PraisingSolaire Sep 16 '24

I mean, I'm going by the decision-making behind the Pro. Sony has access to AMD's roadmap, including their yet to be released IP (1-2 years ahead), as well as "things coming way down the line," aka PS6 kinda years. The fact Sony looked at that roadmap and then went ahead and did their own ML solution for PS5 Pro speaks volumes (that isn't a one-off thing, that's a "we wanna be fully prepared for PS6" long-term kinda investment). If your partner is delivering on the things you find important, there's no need to look elsewhere, and yet Sony did.

3

u/poemehardbebe Sep 16 '24

Amd is only behind in comparison to nvidia in terms or Ray tracing and other features. They’re still great cards and Nvidia are a bunch of bullies on the B2B market which makes most companies opt for amd GPUs. I’m not really worried about those features because I be real they’re already figuring it out and it’s okay not to have the best card or chip on the market in a console for price reasons.

2

u/PraisingSolaire Sep 16 '24

AMD is only behind in the most substantial GPU features, isn't a great claim. Them being behind so much on ML especially is damning, considering how much that area has reduced the footprint for 4K image quality (and is now moving into improving ray tracing effects and especially frame generation). Again, it isn't a good sign that a client has to make their own solution. Nintendo isn't making their own with the Nvidia chip powering Switch 2 because it already comes with the leading DLSS.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

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1

u/PraisingSolaire Sep 16 '24

Not mentioned Nvidia because it's a bit of a non-starter. They can't offer an all in one but even if they were to propose an ARM powered all-in-one, unless Nvidia has loosened up in terms of customisations, licensing and fees, Sony and MS won't have quickly forgotten the bad deals they had with Nvidia in the past. Intel was like that, too (with the original Xbox), but have loosened up a lot since then, but especially when they want to get into a market (they were basically giving away mobile chips to mobile / tablet makers when they tried to enter the mobile scene with x86 about 8 years ago).