I've said this before, but perhaps it's worth repeating: for the specifications that people are speculating about, I can see where $499 makes sense.
However, I believe some of these to be optimistic. And there is actually nothing that has been disclosed officially by either Sony or Microsoft that precludes $399. We do not know the TFLOPS. We don't know the RAM (amount) and we don't know the size of the SSD. Each of these would contribute greatly to the overall BOM of the console.
So just simply based on the official statements from both Sony and Microsoft, $399 is not out of the question.
As for the Xbox One X - I happen to know a little about that. Part of what drove $499 for the X was simply the knowledge that it would be a smaller part of the overall mix. Meaning, what drove the cost was that it wasn't going to be the volume leader. Knowing that, it allowed MS to spend more on increasing the amount of memory, better cooling solution, etc. So the extra $100 was used to make the device even more premium. It would have been possible to do a version of the X at $399, but it would have meant compromises in other ways. So you could have gotten something close to the X for $399 if you were willing to give up a few things. This is what Sony decided to do and how they landed the Pro at $399.
I'm not saying that I know anything about what Sony is doing for sure. If they launch at $499 I would be surprised but I'm not suggesting it's impossible or crazy or bad or the rumors are wrong. It's just my guess that they will make some tradeoffs in order to get to a $399 sales price because it's been very successful for them and I happen to know it's not out of the question.
So to answer your question directly: Yes I do. It's certainly possible. I guess we will have to wait and see.
While I think $399 is unlikely, i think it might be possible if we assume a few things:
- 1TB SSD costs the same as 500GB HDD did in 2013.
- 16 GB GDDR6 costs the same as 8GB GDDR5 did in 2013.
- UHD costs the same as a Bluray drive in 2013.
This leaves us with a $381 BOM and a weakish $100 budget for the SOC. I think this would be your 8tflops console.
Where I disagree with you in regards to performance matching 2013 levels is the fact that Sony and MS are now competing for the same price and performance. They will both be willing to take a loss in order to have the more powerful console. if that means going with a $150 APU then fine, sell for a $30 loss you can make up with a few first party game sales and services. If they go with a $150 APU then they will have to invest in a premium cooling solution like vapor chamber cooling like you guys did with the x1x. I dont think it's going to cost much more than $20 on top of the standard cooling the PS4 used in 2013.
So that gives us a $450 BOM for a console that has an APU that cost 50% more. With 7nm costs being much higher than the 28nm fab process, its possible that $150 gives us a 350mm2 GPU, same size as a PS4. That is still a 50-60 CU GPU. >10 tflops.
Again, thats assuming the ssd, vram and optical drive prices remain the same which is very unlikely. 1 TB HDDs were selling for $50-60 back then and Sony went with a 0.5 TB HDD for $37 a pop. 1TB SSD is going for over $110 right now.
