AMD has secured another 13,000 units at TSMC’s 7nm capacity, thanks to Mediatek bowing out as it could no longer supply Huawei due to the latest rounds of US regulations. The bulk of this is expected to be diverted to the next-gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft to make sure the market demands are met.
Like the GeForce RTX 3080, both the PS5 and Xbox Series X were sold out within minutes of the launch (pre-orders in case of the consoles). The number of units available at the time of launch from TSMC is pegged at around 100K, with the yields nearing 60%. This may sound low for the 7nm node which has been in production for several years now, but let’s not forget that the APUs (the GPUs to be more specific) powering the consoles are massive dies and as such yields won’t be that high from the very beginning. As both the next-gen consoles leverage the same exact process node, but with different dies, it has further aggravated the issue.
By the end of 2020, yields are said to increase to around 70-80%, allowing for ample supply in the first half of 2021. Regardless, both the consoles are expected to hit record highs in terms of sales in 2020 itself, with the forecast for the following years expected to be better than ever.
The recent acquisition of Bethesda and its subsidiaries has significantly boosted Xbox IP and should have a major impact on the sales of both the Series S and X. Furthermore, the GamePass is looking stronger than ever with all titles from EA, Bethesda, and other existing third-party titles for just $10 on PC. MS has proved that it’s really planning long-term.
