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Sony exports mysterious 'console prototypes' to U.S.

Lunatic_Gamer

Gold Member
84863_4_sony-ships-out-thousands-of-mysterious-dev-kits-what-are-they-for_full.png


Sony Interactive Entertainment has made some interesting shipments lately. The company has sent thousands of development kits from all over the world to Oakland, California. These devkits are presumably modified PS5 systems specifically for software creators. They might also be PSVR2 devkits, or perhaps even early units for a new upgraded PS5 Pro.

Now Sony is apparently shipping prototype units overseas. According to international shipment records, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe shipped 1,500lbs of video game console prototypes from its London, UK headquarters over to Norfolk, Virginia on November 16, 2021. The shipment was made in 4 CTN (cartons) weighing 694 kg (about 1,532 lbs).


Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/84874/sony-exports-mysterious-console-prototypes-to/index.html

 

cormack12

Gold Member
Source: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/84874/sony-exports-mysterious-console-prototypes-to/index.html

Sony's European division has shipped multiple "console prototypes" overseas to the United States, import records show.

Sony Interactive Entertainment has made some interesting shipments lately. The company has sent thousands of development kits from all over the world to Oakland, California. These devkits are presumably modified PS5 systems specifically for software creators. They might also be PSVR2 devkits, or perhaps even early units for a new upgraded PS5 Pro.

Now Sony is apparently shipping prototype units overseas. According to international shipment records, Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe shipped 1,500lbs of video game console prototypes from its London, UK headquarters over to Norfolk, Virginia on November 16, 2021. The shipment was made in 4 CTN (cartons) weighing 694 kg (about 1,532 lbs).

The ledger lists an HS Code #981700, which is typically assigned to home video game related products.

Could this be a PS5 Pro prototype with upgraded hardware, likely with mostly PC-level components? Or is it an early model of the PlayStation 5? Perhaps it's a PSVR 2 prototype?

Also...why Virginia? It's hard to say. I couldn't find any data on a Sony branch in the region, however they are multiple Sony service centers in the area. Perhaps the new prototypes needed to be repaired?
 

yurinka

Member
They are PSVR2 devkits, when shown the appearance of the headset they mentioned that were sending the devkits to the devs.

With the chips shortage they will continue using the PS5 model for longer, don't expect to see a PS5 slim or PS5 Pro soon, or ever. Next year they will be selling the consoles that in normal conditions would have sold this year.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I dont think they will do a pro, last gen sony came out with a 140w system, this time they launched with a 220+w system, so they are starting with a more powerful base from the get go.

I think priorities will be in reducing the cost and size of the PS5 and increasing production volume.
 

SeraphJan

Member
I dont think they will do a pro, last gen sony came out with a 140w system, this time they launched with a 220+w system, so they are starting with a more powerful base from the get go.

I think priorities will be in reducing the cost and size of the PS5 and increasing production volume.
I certain hope they somehow do release a pro model, since RDNA3 and beyond is way more power, this might be the biggest generation jump in terms of gpu power
 

Elios83

Member
New PS5 models with revised internals.
I think they'll fight shortages by selling models on different processes simultaneously on the market.
I don't expect a Slim because of this. The original model would become unattractive and they can't shift all the production to the more advanced process because volumes would not be enough.
 
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Rykan

Member
"likely with mostly PC-level components"
What does this mean? It means nothing.
Allow me to explain it to you.

You get PC-level components to upgrade the console to the next PC tier which means that the console will perform at a higher PC level tier using the PC level components to make it more PC which brings out extra PC level performance levels.

Do you understand now?
 

FingerBang

Member
Wasn't it known that Sony was changing the SoC's process to N6, which is a bit cheaper and gets better volume?
I don't think they would need to send out dev kits for those and I can't recall Sony sending out different stuff for slim consoles either. So it's most likely PSVR2 stuff.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I certain hope they somehow do release a pro model, since RDNA3 and beyond is way more power, this might be the biggest generation jump in terms of gpu power
Oh right, is it a bigger architectural leap then GCN to RDNA?

I remember Rich of DF said he heard from Microsoft and his sources that smaller die shrinks wont result in the same cost reduction as earlier die shrinks did, which is why I dont expect a pro.
 

SeraphJan

Member
Oh right, is it a bigger architectural leap then GCN to RDNA?

I remember Rich of DF said he heard from Microsoft and his sources that smaller die shrinks wont result in the same cost reduction as earlier die shrinks did, which is why I dont expect a pro.
According to leakers, RDNA3 is 2.8 times more faster than RDNA2, I would assume a bigger leap than GCN to RDNA1
 
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Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
According to leakers, RDNA3 is 2.8 times more faster than RDNA2, I would assume a bigger leap than GCN to RDNA1
RDNA2 is unlikely to get a die shrink cuz there isnt much in the way of cost saving....which is why you would do a die shrink.
The PS5 Slim or PS5 Pro is also unlikely to be RDNA3 they arent going to move architectures between base and pro consoles.

This shipment is likely PSVR2 or motherboard refreshes.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
According to leakers, RDNA3 is 2.8 times more faster than RDNA2, I would assume a bigger leap than GCN to RDNA1

So ots going to be 280% more performant?

Maybe if you include the die shrink, but they might as well call it something new.
GCN to RDNA was only a 50% improvement.

But If it sich a big leap sony and ms should of waited until RDNA3.

To put things into perspective a 10tflop RDNA3 GPU would be like 3x more powerful then a PS5.
 

SeraphJan

Member
So ots going to be 280% more performant?

Maybe if you include the die shrink, but they might as well call it something new.
GCN to RDNA was only a 50% improvement.

But If it sich a big leap sony and ms should of waited until RDNA3.

To put things into perspective a 10tflop RDNA3 GPU would be like 3x more powerful then a PS5.
 

Sosokrates

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Hes not talking about architecture, hes talking about raw Tflop figure, which will be done by higher clocks and more compute units.
He says ray tracing performance is greatly improved though.

I think weather pro versions are done or not depends if they can get a significantly better GPU in A $499 console.

If sony do a pro thats 20tflops and better RT, I suppose will get higher resolutions and Ray tracing, but these consoles have barely been utilised, a pro model in 2023 would feel premature imo.
 
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SeraphJan

Member
Hes not talking about architecture, hes talking about rae Tflop figure, which will be done by higher clocks and more compute units.
He says ray tracing performance is greatly improved though.

I think weather pro versions are done or not depends if they can get a significantly better GPU in A $499 console.

If sony do a pro thats 20tflops and better RT, I suppose will get higher resolutions and Ray tracing, but these consoles have barely been utilised, a pro model in 2023 would feel premature imo.
He did mention game performance at least 2.5 - 3 couple of times in his channel
 
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dorkimoe

Member
I would hate for PRO consoles to exist this gen.
Slims I am fine with but that's al it would do - make ps5 smaller.
It is already quiet and well cooled.
I agree. Half this generation would be people trying to get consoles
 
Wait...they shipped these to my state? Hmm...maybe I can try finding them... 😈

Jokes aside, pretty interesting. If they really are doing a PS5 Pro, there's still two ways that could go. Either something basically doubling base PS5's TF perf and increasing RT and ML capabilities significantly, or something sticking with baseline PS5 TF perf, pixel fillrate etc. but revamping the GPU architecture with additional hardware for RT etc.

Each would have their advantages and disadvantages...but the latter might be better approach IMHO. The current consoles aren't even being taxed so much in terms of optimization as could, there's still a lot of performance with even those and considering most of that perf is really tied to game scope & budget, we shouldn't see the base systems (aside from Series S) start getting genuinely taxed until maybe 2025.

But in any case, would like to know more about these prototypes and what they are specifically. Hopefully there's a leak or two.

P.S: I hope one of those prototypes is a base PS4-level PlayStation portable. I think that makes even more business sense than a PS5 Pro right now, especially for certain markets like Japan.

Hes not talking about architecture, hes talking about raw Tflop figure, which will be done by higher clocks and more compute units.
He says ray tracing performance is greatly improved though.

I think weather pro versions are done or not depends if they can get a significantly better GPU in A $499 console.

If sony do a pro thats 20tflops and better RT, I suppose will get higher resolutions and Ray tracing, but these consoles have barely been utilised, a pro model in 2023 would feel premature imo.

I'm inclined to agree. 2023 is aggressively early considering base consoles are still extremely hard to find in stores regularly. It's also why I personally think (tho I have no evidence to back this up) why a future "PS5 Pro" is actually likely to be a base PS5 with a newer GPU design based on RDNA 3 (or possibly RDNA 4) and adding a good deal of dedicated hardware accelerated silicon such as things for improved RT.

Remember, raw TF is not a good barometer for game performance; while some things like mesh shading do benefit from wider raw compute performance, they've also barely been used as-is on Series systems (or PS5, which may not have mesh shaders in name but have something virtually identical in function with their revamped primitive shaders). If you want something with more rasterization throughput for example you don't really need more CUs; if scalability allowed for it you could just add more ROPs and TMUs and adjust clocks to be slightly faster and now you have a good deal of more rasterization perf, and only slightly more raw TF perf, yet you get a lot more immediate boost for game-related processing tasks versus taking the other route.

Another advantage would be that die size could be managed better, which is especially important if they're going to remain on 7nm (again there's nothing showing this, but take it as an example). A PS5 Pro with a GPU doubling the size of PS5's (and the same would apply for a Series X "Pro" doing similar in its case) means now a wafer only gets you probably 1/3 less chips than you'd normally get (the GPU portion of the chip will be bigger but not everything is being doubled i.e the CPU cores for example). A "Pro" refresh adding additional hardware acceleration for specific tasks while keeping the CU count essentially the same would make better use of wafer budgets, which are already being taxed as-is by the electronics industry as a whole.

RDNA2 is unlikely to get a die shrink cuz there isnt much in the way of cost saving....which is why you would do a die shrink.
The PS5 Slim or PS5 Pro is also unlikely to be RDNA3 they arent going to move architectures between base and pro consoles.

This shipment is likely PSVR2 or motherboard refreshes.

Didn't the PS4 Pro change GPU architecture from base PS4? Polaris vs. GCN 2.0? And it's not like RDNA 3 won't be BC with RDNA 2, as RDNA 2 is BC with RDNA 1 in spite of certain changes.

I mean I guess RDNA 3 does change up the arrangement of SIMD units, ALUs, etc. and isn't using CUs in the sense that RDNA 2 does, though, so maybe that does constitute as a bigger architectural shift?

People really think that Sony is working on a PS5 Pro under the circumstances? It's not happening...

It's okay to dream...
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Wait...they shipped these to my state? Hmm...maybe I can try finding them... 😈

Jokes aside, pretty interesting. If they really are doing a PS5 Pro, there's still two ways that could go. Either something basically doubling base PS5's TF perf and increasing RT and ML capabilities significantly, or something sticking with baseline PS5 TF perf, pixel fillrate etc. but revamping the GPU architecture with additional hardware for RT etc.

Each would have their advantages and disadvantages...but the latter might be better approach IMHO. The current consoles aren't even being taxed so much in terms of optimization as could, there's still a lot of performance with even those and considering most of that perf is really tied to game scope & budget, we shouldn't see the base systems (aside from Series S) start getting genuinely taxed until maybe 2025.

But in any case, would like to know more about these prototypes and what they are specifically. Hopefully there's a leak or two.

P.S: I hope one of those prototypes is a base PS4-level PlayStation portable. I think that makes even more business sense than a PS5 Pro right now, especially for certain markets like Japan.



I'm inclined to agree. 2023 is aggressively early considering base consoles are still extremely hard to find in stores regularly. It's also why I personally think (tho I have no evidence to back this up) why a future "PS5 Pro" is actually likely to be a base PS5 with a newer GPU design based on RDNA 3 (or possibly RDNA 4) and adding a good deal of dedicated hardware accelerated silicon such as things for improved RT.

Remember, raw TF is not a good barometer for game performance; while some things like mesh shading do benefit from wider raw compute performance, they've also barely been used as-is on Series systems (or PS5, which may not have mesh shaders in name but have something virtually identical in function with their revamped primitive shaders). If you want something with more rasterization throughput for example you don't really need more CUs; if scalability allowed for it you could just add more ROPs and TMUs and adjust clocks to be slightly faster and now you have a good deal of more rasterization perf, and only slightly more raw TF perf, yet you get a lot more immediate boost for game-related processing tasks versus taking the other route.

Another advantage would be that die size could be managed better, which is especially important if they're going to remain on 7nm (again there's nothing showing this, but take it as an example). A PS5 Pro with a GPU doubling the size of PS5's (and the same would apply for a Series X "Pro" doing similar in its case) means now a wafer only gets you probably 1/3 less chips than you'd normally get (the GPU portion of the chip will be bigger but not everything is being doubled i.e the CPU cores for example). A "Pro" refresh adding additional hardware acceleration for specific tasks while keeping the CU count essentially the same would make better use of wafer budgets, which are already being taxed as-is by the electronics industry as a whole.



Didn't the PS4 Pro change GPU architecture from base PS4? Polaris vs. GCN 2.0? And it's not like RDNA 3 won't be BC with RDNA 2, as RDNA 2 is BC with RDNA 1 in spite of certain changes.

I mean I guess RDNA 3 does change up the arrangement of SIMD units, ALUs, etc. and isn't using CUs in the sense that RDNA 2 does, though, so maybe that does constitute as a bigger architectural shift?

They did the pro and 1X the way they dod for a reason, If the way you describe was better they would of done that.

Bumping up clocks, adding rops and tmu's is not going to make a huge difference.

When Cerny was talking TFLOPs he was talking in comparison to the PS4. its still a good indicator of power when talking about the same architecture and ram bandwidth.
 
They did the pro and 1X the way they dod for a reason, If the way you describe was better they would of done that.

You're missing the fact that PS4 and XBO were already heavily outdated by the time they released, with only modest GPUs and underpowered, mobile-tier CPUs (when AMD's mobile-tier CPUs were pretty bad). They had no choice but to bump up the GPUs notably with those mid-gen refreshes.

We're moving from pushing more raw power to smarter power. Part of that includes larger emphasis on dedicated hardware acceleration. PS5 and Series X are quite good already for raw compute and asynchronous compute tasks, and the CPUs are very good this time around. Their power is not being maximized at this time and won't for a while, therefore it's a bit a waste to push Pro units massively increasing the CU/TF perf when that won't give the biggest possible advantage.

Bumping up clocks, adding rops and tmu's is not going to make a huge difference.

It will actually for games and engines that are rasterization-dependent, which happens to be the majority of them.

When Cerny was talking TFLOPs he was talking in comparison to the PS4. its still a good indicator of power when talking about the same architecture and ram bandwidth.

It depends on what type of "power" we are talking about though. For gaming performance yes it does still matter, particularly with tasks like asynchronous compute or things in AMD's arch in particular that rely on CU count like RT units and ML tasks.

However, pixel fillrate, texture fillrate, geometry culling rate, triangle rasterization rate, cache speeds etc. are going to matter more, at least until mesh shading & equivalents start getting heavily used and things shift from the fixed function graphics pipeline to the programmable graphics pipeline mesh shading brings. Even then, it won't completely rid of the importance of those other things mentioned, just emphasize them less.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
You're missing the fact that PS4 and XBO were already heavily outdated by the time they released, with only modest GPUs and underpowered, mobile-tier CPUs (when AMD's mobile-tier CPUs were pretty bad). They had no choice but to bump up the GPUs notably with those mid-gen refreshes.

We're moving from pushing more raw power to smarter power. Part of that includes larger emphasis on dedicated hardware acceleration. PS5 and Series X are quite good already for raw compute and asynchronous compute tasks, and the CPUs are very good this time around. Their power is not being maximized at this time and won't for a while, therefore it's a bit a waste to push Pro units massively increasing the CU/TF perf when that won't give the biggest possible advantage.



It will actually for games and engines that are rasterization-dependent, which happens to be the majority of them.



It depends on what type of "power" we are talking about though. For gaming performance yes it does still matter, particularly with tasks like asynchronous compute or things in AMD's arch in particular that rely on CU count like RT units and ML tasks.

However, pixel fillrate, texture fillrate, geometry culling rate, triangle rasterization rate, cache speeds etc. are going to matter more, at least until mesh shading & equivalents start getting heavily used and things shift from the fixed function graphics pipeline to the programmable graphics pipeline mesh shading brings. Even then, it won't completely rid of the importance of those other things mentioned, just emphasize them less.
In your opinion... Theres is nothing indicating what you are saying.
 

Kdad

Member
I'm guessing its newer hardware that can unlock the full power of the ABANDONED Prologue.
#teamreal
 
I dont think they will do a pro, last gen sony came out with a 140w system, this time they launched with a 220+w system, so they are starting with a more powerful base from the get go.

I think priorities will be in reducing the cost and size of the PS5 and increasing production volume.
Agreed I think MS is more likely to release another console and they said the Series X is the enhanced console. That said though I do think an enhanced console is inevitable but more so in 2024+ than now.
 
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