[HN Gopher] PS5 Refresh: Oberon Plus
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PS5 Refresh: Oberon Plus
Author : de6u99er
Score : 100 points
Date : 2022-09-25 14:28 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.angstronomics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.angstronomics.com)
| Aissen wrote:
| It's crazy that amidst this cost saving, Sony is still going
| forward with the price increase in some markets.
| hatware wrote:
| > It's crazy
|
| It took me 18 months for the chance to buy one from Sony
| Direct. It'd be crazy for Sony not to adjust prices when demand
| is through the roof.
| nerdawson wrote:
| Cost of living increases primarily affect day-to-day spending
| while a PS5 is a luxury purchase.
|
| If you can't afford it at the new price, it probably wouldn't
| have been a wise purchase at the original price.
|
| Sony is a business. Their costs have gone up markedly and when
| the hardware is already subsidised, it's unrealistic to not
| expect increased costs to be passed on.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I'm actually surprised how long prices stayed put despite a
| mismatch between supply and demand.
|
| Any time there's a vibrant scalping market, your prices are
| too low.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| For this reason I always thought Sony and Nvidia should
| just auction off their products initially till the auction
| price is barely above the floor price/planned retail price.
| Just let the market do its thing and take the profit
| instead of giving it to scalpers and inconveniencing
| everyone in the process
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Another alternative is that they sell them first Party
| (probably a non-option because storefronts would probably
| throw a fit). And instead of first come first serve,
| simply have a queue.
| wmf wrote:
| But instead of hating scalpers, then customers would hate
| Sony and Nvidia.
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| Sony could be smart, for example keep existing price as
| is, but also offering "premium" version for higher price
| but with delivery this week. This would kill scalpers.
| lozenge wrote:
| Nintendo did this, the Switch was out of stock
| consistently, unless you bought it in a "bundle". A lot
| of the bundles were 12 months of the Online service, so
| basically easy profit.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I've thought the right thing to do would be to put up
| ~10% of production to auction to take revenue from
| scalpers.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I would have preferred that. I bought mine from a scalper
| with a third of the warranty gone before it was out of
| the box. Would have preferred to get it from Sony.
| chippiewill wrote:
| Sony will have already factored in the cost saving over the
| entire lifespan of the product.
|
| I recall that the original Playstation 3 was a massive loss
| leader. Despite being hugely expensive it was pretty much the
| cheapest Blu Ray player on the market at the time. They were
| able to sell it at a loss because gaining a foothold was
| critical to selling it for a profit later on and the projected
| savings would let them recoup their losses.
|
| If cost of living and inflation weren't crazy right now across
| the world then I'm sure we'd be looking at a price drop on the
| Playstation 5 right now as that's where their projected margins
| would leave them. But factoring in both the cost savings and
| inflation means they still need a price rise just to keep on
| track.
| alias_neo wrote:
| PS3 wasn't particularly reliable for me (anecdotal).
|
| I still have my PSP 1000, PS (Grey rectangular one, not the
| later "One"), PS2 Satin Silver was sold years ago, PS4 was
| given away when I got PS5, all launch day purchases; I went
| through 3 PS3s in its lifetime.
| paulmd wrote:
| I mean, it's a readjustment to local currency values -
| otherwise they're selling the PS5 for 20% less in EU markets
| than in US markets. At some point it becomes worth it to buy a
| container of hardware and turn it around and sell it in the US
| as "grey market" and that's value that Sony wants to capture
| for themselves.
|
| Even allowing software to be sold at different prices in
| different countries already has far more financial
| ramifications than people expect - the grey market seriously
| impacts the profitability of sales in high-earning countries,
| and it fosters a whole black-market of cdkeys that are
| purchased using stolen cards/etc and used for money laundering.
| But with hardware it is a very straightforward "this costs $X
| to R&D and $Y to build and we're not going to sell it to you
| for 20% less than everyone else", you're seeing the grey market
| die out even in traditional strongholds like cameras.
|
| Also, PS5 is a console designed around hardware profitability.
| They reached profitability around 6-9 months after launch and
| they don't want to go backward. Everyone finally said enough is
| enough after PS3 losing hundreds of dollars per console, and
| the PS4 and XB1 are much more conservative designs with
| integrated hardware to cut costs, and they reached
| profitability fairly quickly. PS5 succeeds this and Sony
| absolutely does not want to go back to the "loss-leader
| hardware" model.
|
| Prices are sticky, companies don't always want to adjust them
| every time $FXE has a bad week, but... Sony isn't interested in
| selling to multiple major markets at a discount that pushes
| their hardware into the "subsidized" territory. And they've
| been down for a while now. For everyone else, their cost-
| reduction in the console itself has been sufficient to hold the
| price down, but you don't get a discount like you normally
| would a couple years into the lifecycle. But for the markets
| where there have been big currency depreciations on top... they
| are adjusting it.
| jonas21 wrote:
| In other words, Sony isn't charging more (in dollars). Your
| euro/pound/yen is just worth less than it was a year ago.
|
| https://www.google.com/finance/quote/EUR-
| USD?comparison=JPY-...
| midislack wrote:
| I didn't even realize the PS5 was out, did anybody even buy the
| PS4?
| detaro wrote:
| "did anybody even buy the second-best selling stationary game
| console ever", really?
| ip26 wrote:
| "Nobody buys those anymore, they're always sold out"
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| To be fair, it's been impossible to buy a PS5 since it came
| out unless you're willing to really jump through hoops for it
| gambiting wrote:
| That's something that people who have no interest in buying
| one say - because if you did, you'd find that they have
| been in stock for months from various retailers and it's
| not an issue to buy one at all.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| ah, fair enough.. I gave up on trying to buy a PS5 about
| six months ago when I "won" the Newegg Shuffle and bought
| an RTX 3080 TI at a huge markup
| Aunche wrote:
| Out of a whim, I checked the Playstation store, and they
| actually had the PS5 in stock. I'm paying some extra for
| the blu-ray edition with Horizon bundle, but it's still
| cheaper than scalpers.
| Gracana wrote:
| I and two of my friends bought PS5s. It took some effort,
| but it wasn't too bad. We all got them within a month of
| deciding to buy. I don't really disagree with what you're
| saying though, you have to find an opportunity to buy and
| then make the right moves to get one.
| Nursie wrote:
| Bought one a year ago here in Australia - went to an IRL
| retailer (!) who said they would put us on the list for
| their next shipment. About a week later, we got it.
|
| Seems there are still ongoing issues though.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| You should look up the concept of bubbles.
|
| Because you are in a serious bubble if you aren't just being
| facetious.
|
| Or was this one of those 'I don't even have a tv' weird flexes.
| midislack wrote:
| I'm not a teenager any more either, could have something to
| do with it.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| I wonder if it uses liquid metal.
| scorpios77 wrote:
| latchkey wrote:
| Semi related, I have a huge number of BC-250's [0]. Now that ETH
| mining is over, I'm looking for something interesting to do with
| them. Not looking to sell them, but that might be possible at
| quantity, I'd rather work with you to run something on them. They
| iPXE boot Ubuntu. GigE. No onboard storage, but have 16gigs of
| ram. Easily tuned for performance.
|
| Thoughts?
|
| [0] https://www.techspot.com/news/93980-14800-asrock-mining-
| rig-...
| speps wrote:
| Contribute to the different volunteer computing projects:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volunteer_computing_pr...
| latchkey wrote:
| Good suggestion, I reached out folding. Let's see what
| happens.
| tekno45 wrote:
| stable diffusion hosting
| liminalsunset wrote:
| How well did the economics of this kind of an operation end up
| working out? Seems like these were a fairly recent development,
| so they really wouldn't have had much time, say, the 500 days
| cited to reach profitability.
|
| It would be interesting to see how the GPU driver side of this
| works. If they boot Ubuntu, what kind of GPU driver is required
| to run the GPU? Is it open source amdgpu compatible?
|
| In any case, these would work rather well for some kind of VPS
| server hosting or maybe more like dedicated server hosting,
| given the density/form factor. That is assuming the driver
| situation doesn't preclude a choice of operating system...
| latchkey wrote:
| They run standard Ubuntu 20.04 and can be upgraded to 22 or
| whatever else comes along.
|
| Standard AMD Ubuntu driver (21.50.2.50002, but can be
| upgraded as well). Heavily modified the AMD packaging to
| minimize it to just the necessary files because these iPXE
| boot (sadly, still around ~60megs).
|
| The bigger issue is that they don't have any onboard
| persistent storage (could be added, but the speed is limited
| to about 500mbit/s) and they are only gigE.
|
| Running strictly from memory, they are also prone to memory
| corruption. Odd, I know, but I see it at the scale we
| operate. Thus, they need to be treated as interruptible
| machines. Reboot to running is about 60s.
|
| So, quite a few limitations, but still good hardware, if we
| can find a good workload for them.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| > Running strictly from memory, they are also prone to
| memory corruption. Odd, I know, but I see it at the scale
| we operate. Thus, they need to be treated as interruptible
| machines. Reboot to running is about 60s.
|
| This would be an instant dealbreaker for me. To quote the
| inimitable Sweet Brown, _ain't nobody got time for that_.
| [1]
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_Nobody_Got_Time_for_
| That
| throwagpu wrote:
| Do these support graphics of any kind? Can you run a test
| with Vulkan? Can the boards run windows and correctly start
| DirectX?
| latchkey wrote:
| It is effectively this GPU with RDNA1:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_RX_5000_series
|
| I don't know about Windows, but at this scale, I doubt it
| would be easy to iPXE boot this many blades over gigE.
| liminalsunset wrote:
| Is this memory corruption you speak of silent, or simply
| fatal?
|
| This could be a significant problem if the workload
| requires some form of integrity, since the hardware could
| be quietly introducing errors into otherwise normal looking
| computing
|
| I remember having this issue with overclocked AMD cards
| mining too, where it was common to try to undervolt or
| overclock the memory. I wonder if any of those tuning tools
| work here, and if it would be possible to underclock the
| memory to increase its stability.
|
| Either way, this echoes some of the sentiment I generally
| had around hardware intended for mining, including the
| bitcoin branded 2000 watt power supplies built with bottom
| of the barrel parts. Most hardware built for mining was
| built with exactly one purpose in mind, and has significant
| warts when it is attempted to be repurposed. The kind of
| constraints and requirements that cryptomining presents are
| really quite different from those of most modern IT
| systems.
| latchkey wrote:
| Silent. It'll be things like you can't ssh into the box
| any more or you log in and can't reboot it. Likely due to
| ethash mining, which is heavily RAM based and the
| voltage/clocking. Luckily, it is easy to change those
| settings to build more stability. I have a process that
| auto tunes the machines for known instabilities... but
| the weird silent ram corruption ones are much harder to
| detect.
|
| You're totally right that mining hardware was majority
| single purpose, especially at large scale. Those PSU's
| did the job, but yes, in general, hand soldered in China
| and prone to do weird things.
|
| It certainly puts a hamper into what can be done with it
| now that the merge has happened, but I'd like to keep
| trying to find uses!
| liminalsunset wrote:
| I wonder if these have any chance of running TensorFlow
| or other ML applications. The problem would again, be
| that there is no local storage and thus the 4GB Stable
| Diffusion model might be a bit much, but once loaded,
| perhaps it may work well for that kind of non critical
| application.
|
| I think one of the reasons GPU memory corruption may
| cause the system to freeze is because the GPU and main
| memory are unified on APUs, which would probably explain
| the machines being difficult to login or use sometimes
| latchkey wrote:
| It is effectively this GPU with RDNA1:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_RX_5000_series
|
| Yes, shared memory is definitely the cause.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| It's interesting that they didn't do a big horse and pony show
| for new models of consoles these days. Historically console
| manufacturers would use updates like these to push a new "slim"
| model or whatever, but nowadays it's done without much fanfare.
| Perhaps they sell enough either way that there's no point in
| making a spectacle of it.
|
| I always like to wait for the first revision of hardware to buy
| in, since better thermals generally mean better longevity of the
| overall hardware.
| chippiewill wrote:
| It's probably just too early in the product lifecycle for a
| slim model. The PS4 just barely eaked one out at the 2 year
| mark because the XBone and PS4 were pretty dated hardware when
| they released, the PS3 took 3 years, PS2 took 5 years The slim
| "PS One" took 6 years.
|
| Capacity for die shrinks is probably a bit tight at the moment
| given the chip shortages and the fact that Apple are basically
| buying all TSMC production capacity on stuff that's vaguely
| new. The 6nm process they've just picked up for the PS5 refresh
| was coming online when the PS5 was first released. I imagine
| we'll see a true slim when Sony / AMD are able to get enough
| capacity on the 5nm or 4nm process.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Sometimes they drop ports or backward compatibility though.
| monocasa wrote:
| They update internals many times without changing the case
| design generally. The reason is cost reduction. Smaller dies
| mean more dies per wafer. Thermal reduction implies you can get
| away with a less beefy power supply and thermal management
| solution, etc.
| Sephr wrote:
| You can't make a 'slim' model as easily with these minor
| efficiency improvements.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Indeed, and there will absolutely be a "real" slim version,
| probably in the next year or so. The existing case is massive
| and mostly empty-- so it's really a matter of getting the
| thermals under control, whether via a better airflow design
| or by die size reduction and therefore power/heat savings at
| the source.
| goosedragons wrote:
| That's because this isn't a new slim model, just a minor
| internal revision. These never got big fanfare. There's like 10
| different PS2 revisions for example and a similar number of PS3
| revisions. Highlighting that you removed a handful of LEDs to
| save 43 cents on each unit isn't usually done. Occasionally
| there is a bigish difference like the original PS2s having
| their PCMIA slot replaced with a HDD slot or the slimline PS2
| getting an integrated power supply near the end but often it
| wasn't visible unless you opened the unit and compared.
|
| The only time I remember people seriously caring was for the
| 360 where every new revision was speculated to be the fix for
| RROD.
| bpye wrote:
| It does have lower power requirements though - so it seems
| like they could have made it somewhat smaller but decided not
| to?
| rbanffy wrote:
| Retooling also has a cost. And the lower power with the
| precious heat sink and fan can make the console more
| reliable, reducing warranty expenses. This is all a guess,
| of course. I don't have any of these numbers.
| eterps wrote:
| Unfortunate product code name, I thought the article was about
| Oberon or Oberon+ https://oberon-lang.github.io
| sp332 wrote:
| There are older things named Oberon.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon
| bitwize wrote:
| That's all wonderful, but useless if you are unable to buy one.
| gambiting wrote:
| That is nothing more than a meme at this point - at least here
| in UK they have been in stock for months and it's not an issue
| to buy one whatsoever.
| deanc wrote:
| Stores here in Finland are currently shipping pre-orders from
| January. There is a shortage and it's real.
| gambiting wrote:
| That's super weird. Sounds like whoever is the Finnish PS5
| distributor needs a solid kick in the bum, as there isn't a
| shortage in other countries.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Everytime I check Amazon, newegg, and best buy(store and
| online) they have been out of stock. I'm on Amazon's invite
| to purchase list.
| bdcravens wrote:
| In the US they typically aren't available at the typical
| retail locations.
| throwntoday wrote:
| You can buy direct from Sony
| dajonker wrote:
| Please tell me where to look, I'm currently in the UK and I
| can't find one available anywhere?
| wmf wrote:
| You need to follow something like
| https://twitter.com/PS5StockAlertUK
| bdcravens wrote:
| I was able to buy one from WalMart's site last month (fulfilled
| by a third party). They appear to still be available.
| ip26 wrote:
| With far more die per wafer, it should help with that problem.
| croes wrote:
| Based on location or availability?
| [deleted]
| awill wrote:
| I expected Sony to wait until at least N5
| wmf wrote:
| Would N5 ever be cheaper than N6?
| Veliladon wrote:
| N6 has the exact same design rules as N7 which means a die
| shrink is about as relatively close to trivial as it gets when
| it comes to dropping a half-node.
| mindcrime wrote:
| Who else was hoping this was about a port of Oberon[1] to the
| PS5?
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system)
| sedatk wrote:
| I'm an outlier: I thought it was a re-implementation of Adobe
| Photoshop 5 using Oberon programming language.
|
| (Tidbit: Photoshop was first written in Pascal, the ancestor of
| Oberon)
| deadbunny wrote:
| My guess? Less than the number of finger I have.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| On HN? Almost certainly more. I was wondering what PS5 could
| possibly mean in the context of OS dev!
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