Been talking about this for a while. Not ruling it out since Zenji Nishikawa also heard about both coming out at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised.
Yeah but realistically does a 12 or even 13TF PS5 Pro look like
that much of an upgrade over a 9.2TF PS5 (going with what we know so far)? That's not even a 2x increase, while PS4 Pro was a 2.3x increase over base PS4.
And even in that case you'd still be looking at a PS5 Pro with "negligible" advantage over XSX (when there have been people saying that 12TF XSX/11TF PS5 is negligible at best), while possibly costing $50 or $100 more. Or suppose the $450 BOM number is true; the only way you can build a 13TF/13+TF PS5 Pro on that BOM means sacrificing big on some other critical area, like storage or RAM.
And then you have the issue that if the $450 BOM is true but was just for base PS5, then you'd have a base PS5 pricing at $399 or $450, and a PS5 Pro at what? $500? When the BOM will likely be over $500 (as is rumored for XSX, ranging from $480 - $520)? Why price the Pro at only $50 over the base and eat into the cheaper unit's sales? Especially when Sony's own internal research showed that base PS4 sales were still magnitudes more than PS4 Pro's? Or else they sell PS5 at $399, but now they're losing $50 per unit sold and possibly selling fewer base PS5s due to a PS5 Pro that's only $100 more but could itself sell at only break-even or even at a loss itself? And wouldn't this type of pricing strategy run contrary to statements Jim Ryan has made in the past, and the apparent struggle behind-the-scenes on how to price the system(s) to either make profit or take a loss?
It just honestly makes no sense for Sony to do that. I don't even think it makes a lot of sense for MS to release Lockhart but at least in that case there's evidence pointing to it being a portable hybrid device (in the graphic mentioning that newly uncovered APU TDP-down is specifically listed which points to a device with some type of portable functionality i.e Switch). As-is, with what we know and what has data out there, base PS5 would be clocked lower (so not even hitting 9.2TF but quite lower than 9) to ease on the cooling and probably have other components removed or scaled back to go for $399 at profit, and the PS5 Pro would focus on pushing cooling and mounting the features and components to try going for a premium system for 13TF - 14TF, but that also pushes its BOM well north of $500 and, being the more expensive option by default, probably sold for profit at $600.
A $400 base PS5 (around probably 8.3-8.7TF), and a $600 PS5 Pro (let's say 13TF or 14TF), over a 5+ TF differential in favor of Pro, same day at launch. But then what do the yields look like? What's the split between the two? What's the distribution plan between the two over the many territories? And how does that fare for them vs. a $300/$350 Lockhart (2.xTF TDP-down, 3.96TF docked) hybrid and $500 XSX (12 or 12.xTF)? IMHO I think that gives MS an advantage, not just in pricing, but in system variety because one would be a hybrid (again, why would a Microsoft-related APU need to mention TDP-down and with the other specs listed in that leak if it isn't some kind of hybrid portable? Which would especially make sense for Asian markets? It's even possible this could be part of the partnership with Samsung, i.e licensing out the APU to manufacturing partners for their own products, chiefly Samsung. Speculation on my part). Meanwhile Sony would have a base PS5 lacking appeal to portable-orientated gamers, and priced higher, and a PS5 Pro potentially eating into the base system's market since the Day 1 hardcore/core early adopters will likely go for the power-focused option instead. And that depends on it they can even find a PS5 Pro depending on the split; if the split it too small then, by virtue of being "practically" unavailable you might as well say the PS5 Pro wouldn't exist!
Again, that could be Sony's plans but I think it would actually be a pretty big mistake. Save the Pro until 2 or 3 years post-launch, make it real mid-gen leap (18TF on a newer RDNA architecture, AND still coming in cheaper, around $399/$499) and simply focus on a single SKU base system for launch. It's worked well enough for them in the past. I think MS understands this, too, and a reason we haven't heard about Lockhart is because it's going to be a lot more than "just" a smaller, weaker XSX. In other words, it's probably a portable hybrid-like device, and might extend to that recently announced Samsung partnership.
wccftech.com
Leonidas
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