But Sony doesn't pay retail prices, they pay much less than that, and they don't have to make a profit at launch. Also, they might use a cheaper memory solution like GDDR6, so that will further reduce the price. 12 TFLOPS in 2019 is not unrealistic imo.
It's important to look at the other components, when I said ~$300 for a retail GPU matching Vega 64 in 2019, I was looking at a $200 mass market GPU for PS5, If you want ryzen with 8 cores, that is a massive CPU, and that will cost a lot, even mass market pricing on something like that would probably be too much, so maybe a 4 core 8 thread CPU? we are looking at ~$300 (give or take $20) for just the CPU/GPU for a console. Maybe they can get this all in a platform for $500 but it isn't a given, I'd say there is a large engineering feat here at that price. All those other components, more than 8GB of memory, (XBOX has 12GB, so I'd assume 16GB minimum for PS5 but they might want to go for 32GB incase they want/need to push 8k or 4k VR in that generation. Even with a loss, this sounds like a $600 machine, and if Sony is willing to loose $100? I mean PS4 sold at a $60 price loss iirc, and it was only 7 months after launch that they closed that gap, largely because 28nm process had become cheaper. 7nm will still be brand new in 2019, and expensive, remember that PS4 and XB1 came out 2 years after 28nm, at best holiday 2019 will only be 1 year after 7nm becomes available for the most expensive devices (High End Smart Phones)
I think there is zero chance that Sony will release an 8 TFLOPS console in 2019. And I also doubt that they will launch much later. They have a chance to keep their momentum by releasing the PS5 before the Xbox Two, and making the Xbox One X obsolete after only 2 years. A PS5 teaser at the end of 2018 would put quite a lot of pressure on Microsoft.
The Xbox One X also won't be able to compete with the PS5, it only has a weak Jaguar CPU, when the PS5 will likely have a Ryzen 2 CPU. But I agree about the price.
I agree that an 8TFLOPs console is in the cards, minimum would likely be a 10TFLOPs, but 12TFLOPs is what is expected, and in my opinion, needed for a real generation gap between PS4 (and pro) and PS5. I'm not sure about the XBOX's CPU being an issue, if the command processor for the API draw calls actually works as advertised? That is a huge lift off of the CPU's shoulders, I mean it won't match an 8 thread ryzen, but game designs really don't require that much more CPU power, even when you compare the CPUs in the XB1 and PS4 to last gen CPUs, the gap is no where near as big as it was with the GPU upgrade, maybe twice as fast. I'm also not sure that Microsoft is planning to move to a new generation after XBOX, they would likely look at another upgrade to their current platform in a similar form as smart phones. If I was a marketing exec over in Redmond, I'd call the next Xbox, Xbox gen 5. As the next one could be seen as the 5th version of the Xbox consoles. (XB1S is more like a 3.1)
PS5 in 2020 would be perfect. 2019 way too early for a good next gen jump. So I hope Sony won't rush anything. The PS4 and PS4 Pro combo is good for at least another 3 years.
Launch the PS5 in November 2020, with the best hardware possible for a $399 launch price & selling it for a small loss ( as I have said, make it as powerful as possible). Then, 3 or 4 years later, launch a PS5 Pro for $449.
Repeat. Another 7 year generation.
I also believe PS4 should hold until 2020 because 2019 seems too early to get all their announced software out. The original PS1 launched in 1994 in japan, and PS3 came 7 years after PS2 in japan, PS4 was the same. PS360 gen seemed so long because 360 launched in 2005, and started the gen 8 years before PS4/XB1, but with game development taking 3+ years, it's really not in anyone's best interest to launch a new generation. If PS4 keeps up in sales, there is little reason to do so either, with it passing 100m in 2019 and finally slowing in 2020 significantly, a new console in that year would be strategic for them IMO)
