Yet another AMD executive has stepped forward to claim that the PS4‘s success saved the component manufacturer from a financial disaster. Yesterday, the LinkedIn profile of a current senior director at AMD made rounds, in which he claimed that the company avoided bankruptcy due to its work with Sony. Now, a 19-year AMD veteran has corroborated the claim.

How PS4’s success averted a financial disaster for AMD

Phil Park, a performance architect at AMD, directly quote tweeted the viral thread that started the discussion yesterday. Park said that the original claim, made by 22-year AMD veteran Renato Fragale, was true to his knowledge.

According to Park, AMD took a hit during the 2008 financial crisis and had to sell “multiple” IPs to raise cash. Park also revealed that “most of us” took pay cuts. It’s unclear if he meant the entire AMD workforce or just senior level executives.

“The 2008 Global Financial Crisis put us in an incredibly bad position, especially after Intel’s recovery with Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest and Nehalem,” Park tweeted. “In 2013, the PS4/Xbox One were released which is what we needed for steady revenue to keep us afloat and invest in future products.”

Although Park mentions both the PS4 and Xbox One, Fragale’s LinkedIn profile specifically credits the PS4’s success.

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PS4‘s success helped AMD avoid bankruptcy, according to a senior director at the component manufacturer. Renato Fragale, who has been at AMD for over 22 years now, made this significant claim in his LinkedIn profile, which is still up at the time of this writing.

PS4 ‘one of the most successful launches in AMD history,’ claims director

The LinkedIn profile in question was first spotted by X user Timur222. Fragale, who has held numerous roles at AMD in a career spanning two decades, was a senior product development engineering manager at AMD when he helped lead the production of PS4’s tech.

According to Fragale, AMD’s work with Sony was “viewed as one of the most successful launches in AMD history, helping AMD to avoid bankruptcy.”

Fragale has since moved up the ladder, and is currently the senior director of OEM consumer and gaming client business.

AMD developed PS4’s semi-custom Accelerated Processing Unit (APU). Speaking to The Inquirer back in 2013, the company said that it was the most powerful APU that it had built back then.

“Everything that Sony has shared in that single chip is AMD, but we have not built an APU quite like that for anyone else in the market,” AMD famously said at the time.

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An official presentation in Poland by TV manufacturer TCL Technology suggests that the PS5 Pro will release in “2023/4.” According to a slide in the presentation, the company projects that the mid-gen PS5 console upgrade will arrive alongside a new Xbox Series S/X console too as part of what it calls console “Gen 9.5.”

What TCL expects the PS5 Pro specs will be

It’s unclear whether TCL is merely making projections of the next PS5 and Xbox Series X|S mid-gen upgrades, or if the company knows more about what Sony and Microsoft are planning. For now, we can safely place this near the top of the speculation folder, as TCL is one of the largest TV manufacturers in the world, so it wouldn’t be too surprising if it is privy to more confidential information on the PS5 Pro than most.

Speculation of the PS5 Pro was also sparked by an AMD job listing posted earlier this month that was looking for a System-on-Chip Verification Engineer to be part of “the team behind the chip powering Xbox, PlayStation, and the latest RDNA graphics chip.” A recent report on DigiTimes believes that Sony is asking its manufacturing partners to start production of an upgraded PS5 within the next two years as well.

In other news, Sony is reportedly fixing the PS Plus upgrade pricing for discounted users after backlash, and Dimensional Ink’s Marvel MMO has been canceled just six months after its announcement.

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Speculation of a PS5 Pro model has been reignited due to a job listing by AMD for a System-on-Chip (SOC) Verification Engineer to be part of “the team behind the chip powering Xbox, PlayStation, and the latest RDNA graphics chip.” While there are rumors saying that this new chip is for the PlayStation 6, a mid-gen upgrade to the PS5 seems more likely.

How the PS5 Pro could be powered by this AMD “next-generation” chip

According to the job listing on LinkedIn (as spotted by Dualshockers), AMD is searching for an engineer to join its team in Markham, Canada “for the next-generation chip development project.” Specifically, the team will be “working on [the] next generation of a complex SOC design.”

Combining this listing with a report on DigiTimes, it seems that Sony is asking its manufacturing partners to begin production of an upgraded PS5 within a year or two. The redesigned console is expected to be both cheaper and easier to produce, which should reduce the unit’s price point and lessen the impact of the chip shortage that has negatively impacted global PS5 sales. So it’s no wonder that some expect this to be the PS5 Pro, though Sony and its partners have not confirmed the report in any way.

According to the report, this updated version of the PS5 will also apparently utilize a new fabrication process by TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) featuring the N6 (6 nm) instead of the current N7 technology. TSMC believes that this new process will greatly benefit consumers, as stated on its website:

…[I]ts design rules are fully compatible with TSMC’s proven N7 technology, allowing its comprehensive design ecosystem to be reused. As a result, it offers a seamless migration path with a fast design cycle time with very limited engineering resources for customers not only to achieve the product benefits from the new technology offering but also can significantly reduce customers’ product design cycle time and time-to-market.

It’s unclear if this redesigned chip is for the suspected PS5 Pro, the PS6, or perhaps part of an annual upgrade revision for the PS5. Whether these technical improvements will lead to savings for consumers is difficult to predict, as the PS5 remains one of the prime targets for scalpers.

In other news, new firmware updates for PS3 and PS Vita have disabled PSN account creation, and a new demo for Unreal Engine 5 has showed off how realistic a train station can look.

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More than two months since release, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X remain difficult to find. Scattered inventory refreshes give some people a chance to get one, but there’s no reliable inventory anywhere right now. AMD, the supplier and manufacturer for next-gen console CPUs and GPUs says it expects PS5 and Xbox Series X stock shortages to continue into the second half of 2021.

The statement was made by AMD CEO Lisa Su, who said on the company’s Q4 2020 earnings call that she expects supply constraints will be tight for the first six months of 2021, before “added capacity” in the second half of the year allows supply to catch up to demand. While Su is talking broadly about overall demand for semiconductors, she specifically says the supply constraints stem from “low end of the PC market and in the gaming markets.”

That being said, I think we’re getting great support from our manufacturing partners. The industry does need to increase the overall capacity levels and so we do see some tightness through the first half of the year, but there is added capacity in the second half.

Microsoft has also voiced that it doesn’t expect supply of the Xbox Series X|S to meet demand until at least April 2021. Sony hasn’t spoken up yet, except to say that they are aware of the demand for the PS5, and working to increase manufacturing to meet the inventory demands. However, Sony’s earnings report for Q4 2020 is expected to take place next week, so we may hear more from the company at that time. Both Sony and Microsoft are experiencing record launches for their respective next-gen consoles.

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer has addressed the speed at which they (and presumably Sony) can even manufacture the consoles, which comes down to how fast AMD can supply the components. “It’s really just down to physics and engineering. We’re not holding them back: we’re building them as fast as we can. We have all the assembly lines going. I was on the phone last week with Lisa Su at AMD [asking], ‘how do we get more?’ So it’s something that we’re constantly working on,” Spencer said.

Interest in gaming, thanks in part to the pandemic that began in early 2020, has risen tremendously, catching manufacturers off guard. The limited supply of PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles has proven to be a boon for scalpers who stand to profit by purchasing the hard-to-find consoles and reselling them en masse at oftentimes ridiculous markups. While retailers keep trying to find ways to beat the bots and scalpers, people just looking to make a profit often end up taking stock that would ordinarily go to a legitimate player who hasn’t managed to get their hands on a console yet. If AMD’s projections about their own supply for crucial PS5 and Xbox Series X components holds true, we won’t start seeing stable inventory of either next-gen console for another few months.

[Source: VGC]

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VIZIO is rolling out a performance update on its 2021 line of TVs, including the, P-Series (PQ9 and PQX), M-Series (MQ7 and MQ8), and OLED models. This enhancement adds AMD FreeSync to the ProGaming Engine featured on the M-Series Quantum, P-Series Quantum, and P-Series Quantum X.

Here’s what improvements you’ll see, depending on which model you have:

VIZIO P-Series (PQ9 and PQX)

• AMD FreeSync Premium VRR
• Enhanced 4K 120Hz Graphics Performance
• Sharper Local Dimming
• Enriched Black Level Performance
• Improved SDR & HDR Brightness
• Improved Judder Reduction

VIZIO M-Series (MQ7 and MQ8)

• AMD FreeSync VRR
• Sharper Local Dimming
• Enriched Black Level Performance
• Improved SDR & HDR Brightness

ViZIO OLED

• 4K 120Hz Next-Gen Graphics
• Smoother Variable Refresh Rate
• Improved Judder Reduction

The central focus of this update is to add a smoother experience free of artifacts and screen-tearing, a symptom of the TV’s refresh rate not meshing with the framerate output of the console. VRR, or variable refresh rate, matches the console’s output to ensure that it isn’t rendering any half frames, which create screen tears and artifacts in particularly action and motion-heavy scenes. AMD FreeSync also touts the benefit of lower input latency. Specifically, the M-Series TVs are getting AMD FreeSync, while the P Series gets AMD FreeSync Premium.

Bill Baxter, Chief Technology Officer at VIZIO, commented on the new AMD FreeSync performance-enahncing update.

Today’s games are more demanding than ever, and so are today’s gamers. We worked side by side with AMD to ensure AMD FreeSync technology would be available on our 2021 Collection, in turn giving our users a smooth, high refresh rate gaming experience. With highly anticipated game console releases from Microsoft and Sony around the corner, consumers are looking for a commitment to high-end gaming performance on the big screen that matches their own passion. VIZIO’s 2021 lineup delivers on that commitment and then some with best-in-class 4K Quantum Color picture performance and industry-leading peak brightness.

VIZIO’s line of 2021 TVs are already next-gen ready out of the box, sporting HDMI 2.1, the latest high-performance standard in HDMI connectors. VIZIO cemented itself as a TV for gamers with its partnership with Marvel’s Avengers, touting affordable next-gen features so that you can be ready to go when the new consoles launch in just a couple of weeks.

The post VIZIO Performance Update Brings AMD FreeSync to 2021 Line of TVs, 4K 120Hz Support for Next-Gen Gaming appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Leading semiconductor company AMD said during a financial presentation that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are on track to release in fall 2020.

Due to the spread of Coronavirus and resulting supply chain delays, there were concerns that Sony and Microsoft wouldn’t be able to meet manufacturing deadlines. However, AMD has said that won’t be the case.

Next-gen news out of AMD presentation today

– PS5 is also RDNA2 just like Xbox Series X
– Development is on track, sounding like NO DELAYS
– RDNA 2 has a 50% increase in performance per watt over RDNA1
– Hardware accelerated ray tracing continues to be a MAJOR next-gen focus pic.twitter.com/BDgu4uCMS6

— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) March 5, 2020

A month ago, financial services company Jeffries Group wrote a note to investors, warning them of potential supply chain delays due to Coronavirus. The note indicated that prolonged delays are likely to disrupt Microsoft and Sony’s plans for the holiday 2020 launches.

However, other industry analysts including Michael Pachter noted that console manufacturers still have time to adjust to the situation, giving them room to make contingency plans.

“I think Sony and Microsoft will quietly arrange for production in Taiwan and Vietnam (at a cost of maybe $5-10 per unit more at most) just to be safe,” Pachter predicted.

That said, it can’t be denied that Coronavirus has had quite an impact on various industries, especially conumer electronics and games industries. Companies with more immediate plans have particularly suffered as they scramble for backup.

Neither Sony nor Microsoft have commented on these reports yet but we’ll keep our readers posted.

[Source: AMD]

The post Next-Gen Consoles Still on Track to Release in Holiday 2020, Says AMD appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

A console generation leap is always a tough move to make. Moving to a new console usually means leaving behind massive libraries of games, and having to make the decision to power on the old console if you want to finish up anything in your backlog. As we move to more and more digital libraries, watching old purchases become obsolete has become a point of concern for many gamers.

Numerous pieces of evidence are now coming together to suggest that the impending PlayStation 5 will have backwards compatibility when it launches, at least with the PS4 library. The first clue came from a patent discovered back in March that alludes to backwards compatibility in a very long and roundabout technical speak kind of way. It discusses needing hardware with faster timing than that of the “legacy” tech in order to not run into any issues.  This week, we’ve seen two additional things come up that as good as guarantee we’ll be getting a PS5 backwards compatibility.

A line in the Sony IR Day 2018 report mentions the goal “to mitigate the impact of platform lifecycle compared to the past cycle.” Sony operates at a loss on the years that it releases new consoles, with growth coming later in the console life cycle. Some analysts are taking this line to mean that they also want to mitigate the impact of the life cycle on players. This section of the deck talks about player retention and the user experience as well, and offering a way for users to carry over their old libraries of games would make a PS5 a much easier purchase. decision. Wishful thinking, or is Sony planning to make the console transition an easier process for everyone?

The final bit of evidence comes in the form of the new AMD Ryzen tech that Sony seems to be working with. While not confirmed to be the CPU that Sony will use in their next generation console, if Sony is indeed working with it, it would mean that the PS4 and PS5 architecture are very similar. The PS4 currently uses a modified AMD Jaguar. One of the biggest things preventing the PS4 from backwards compatibility with PS3 games was the leap from the Cell architecture on the PS3, which was a vastly different hardware environment. If PS4 and PS5 are more similar (using the Jaguar and Ryzen CPUs respectively), it would be possible to allow users to carry over their PS4 libraries.

I’ve got a lot of games on my PS4, and even a ton I never finished on my PS3. If I had the ability to easily go back and play those PS3 games on my PS4, I would probably finish them up. As of right now? It’s been a number of years since I’ve even had my PS3 plugged in, let alone turned it on. With a massive library of both digital and physical games, I would love to be able to bring those to the PS5 when it releases.

With Microsoft offering increased backwards compatibility support on the Xbox One with Xbox 360 titles, Sony needs to make a strong play when it comes to their next hardware offering. Telling people to leave behind a library of games is not a good way to foster a user base, particularly in a day when we’re used to making digital purchases and always having those available to us. Of course, all of this is just a big rumor. The PlayStation 5 isn’t even confirmed to be real yet, so any supposition about PS5 backwards compatibility is just that: supposition.

Sony IR Day 2018 has been a revelation of new information as Sony communicates with investors, including hints that we won’t be seeing a possible PlayStation 5 until late 2020/early 2021. In an interview, PlayStation CEO John Kodera indicated that the PS4 was reaching the final phase of its life cycle, and the next three years would be spent preparing for the future.

What are the core features you want to see next generation? Is PS5 backwards compatibility a must-have? What other features do you think will allow us to make a big generational leap forward?

The post Rumor: More Evidence Points to PS5 Backwards Compatibility With PS4 Library appeared first on PlayStation LifeStyle.

Bear with us here, we’re about to get technical and dive down a deep rabbit hole that might hint at what Sony’s working with for their next-gen architecture. As originally discovered by Phoronix, Simon Pilgrim, a principal programmer at Sony, has been “working on AMD Ryzen LLVM compiler improvements.” If that doesn’t make a lot of sense to you, it basically means that Sony has someone actively working on improvements and hardware support for CPU technology that isn’t currently available in any PlayStation products. Apparently Pilgrim has entered numerous improvements, cleanups, and changes to the znver1 code within LLVM, which points to this being much more than a one-off bit of code work.

Sony is already working with AMD and has been for years. The PS4 uses a modified AMD Jaguar CPU. It’s not too far fetched to think they might transition to another CPU within the AMD family for the next iteration of the PlayStation, and Pilgrim’s work improving the Ryzen CPU shows that Sony has an investment in this technology. With this evidence in hand, Ryzen could be the basis for the PlayStation 5, or whatever Sony ends up calling their next console.

Digital Foundry points out that Pilgrim is currently working with the first generation of Ryzen core, even though the estimated 2020 release that most people estimate as the next PlayStation release would line up better with the second generation of Ryzen tech. CPU manufacturers often focus on desktop and server variants of the technology first, so even if the second generation release around this time, modified architecture for consoles likely wouldn’t be available until a year or two after. This is why many consoles are considered underpowered at the time of their release in comparison to similar PC counterparts.

Furthermore, Digital Foundry talks about the benefits of Sony using the AMD Ryzen tech as they move into the next generation of hardware. “The ability to combine Ryzen x86 CPU architecture and Radeon graphics into a single chip (and to license both key components from a single vendor) has great advantages in terms of economy, ease of development and cross-platform compatibility.” If Sony wants to sell the PlayStation 5 at an affordable price, making economical moves like this one is critical.

Sony responded to this news when questioned by saying that they don’t comment on rumors or speculation. While there’s no doubt that Pilgrim has indeed been working on a compiler and improvements for the AMD Ryzen tech, we still can’t quite be sure what that work is for. Is this our first hint at what will be under the hood of the PlayStation 5? Will we see a PS5 AMD Ryzen core, or some custom version of it for Sony’s upcoming console?

It was recently revealed that Sony considers the PS4 to be entering the final phase of its life cycle. What exactly this means for timing is up in the air. Despite the comments having a sense of impending doom to them for the PS4, it was also pointed out that we likely wouldn’t see any big shifts for the company until March 2021. This was an investor meeting, and March 2021 is the end of the fiscal year 2020, which means we’ve got a pretty good window of when we might expect a PlayStation 5 to release. If that’s the case, we’re probably still about two years away from even hearing anything official about it.

[Source: Digital Foundry]

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AMD has shed light on new “design wins” — industry speak for when one a product is incorporated into another company’s sales model — in its Semi-Custom processor design arm, indicating that three new pieces of console hardware will hit the market throughout this year and beyond. 

That’s according to AMD CEO, Lisa Su, who spoke to GamesIndustry.biz about how the chip manufacturer is anticipating a $1.5 billion revenue boon from sales of the new parts.

One thing worth noting is that Su conceded “not all” chips will ship before the year’s end, while it remains to be seen if said processor designs will even be developed into console parts at all. In theory, the three new console reveals would comprise the Nintendo NX along with the all-but-confirmed PS4.5 and, potentially, a revised Xbox One.

Per GamesIndustry:  

“In addition to the new design wins, we have our current game console business as well. So when you look at the aggregate of that, we do expect to start ramping that new business in the second half of the year. But we also expect the seasonal uplift of our traditional game console business. So that’s adding to what we expect will be a strong year for Semi-Custom overall.”

Su stopped short of delving into specifics, however, specifically when it came to the technical specifications of said processors: “I don’t believe that we’ve gone through any detail about what those wins are. So I would prefer to let that come out as our customers are ready to launch.”

What do you make of the alleged new wave of hardware? 

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]

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