PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X will cost much more than their predecessors

Microsoft and Sony have shown that they are very ambitious regarding their next game consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. So ambitious, that the price of the consoles could rise sharply.

We now know that Sony and Microsoft will market their PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X at the end of 2020, and the two firms have started to unveil the technical characteristics of the two consoles.

The specialized site Digital Foundry has extensively analyzed the design of the recently unveiled Xbox Series X. But also the expected characteristics of the console.

It concludes in particular that the AMD graphics chip of the Xbox Series X, which should be capable of a gross power of 12 TFlops, would be more complex than all the graphics cards launched by AMD so far.

To this will be added a high-end processor, based on the latest generation Zen 2 from AMD, and a very swift NVMe SSD, with a capacity still unknown, but probably from 500 GB to 1 TB, at least.

Finally, the site notes that to power all this, it will probably be necessary to count on a sharp increase in the consumption of the console in play, and therefore a more powerful power supply. Cooling should also be adjusted upward, especially since Microsoft promises to produce a console as quiet as the Xbox One X.

All in all, Digital Foundry says he is very excited to see an Xbox Series X which promises to be very ambitious technically, with a PlayStation 5 which should be just as impressive. The site compares this ambition, and this “optimism”, to the launch of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles where Sony and Microsoft had already invested heavily in the development of their consoles.

PS5 and Xbox Series X: towards an increase in the price of consoles

From this article, renowned analyst Daniel Ahmad draws from it that it is difficult to imagine that these consoles could be launched at less than 400 dollars. Given the manufacturing cost involved. The CPU/GPU, GDDR6 Memory and NVMe SSD alone would be well above 50% of both the build price and a $400 retail price.

He points the finger in particular at the prices of the graphics memory GDDR6, of the SSD NVMe. But also of the processor/graphics card couple manufactured in 7 nm by AMD and TSMC. Beyond that, we will be able to note elements, undoubtedly less important. But which increase the bill, like the larger size of the Xbox Series X. Which will inevitably have an impact on the price of manufacture of the case, but also and especially its storage and distribution.