Contemplate the PlayStation 2. Not the entire PS2 Slim’s streamlining got here from chip enhancements—it additionally shed a full-sized 3.5-inch exhausting drive bay and a little-used IEEE 1394 port, and initially required an exterior energy brick. However shrinking and consolidating the console’s CPU, GPU, reminiscence, and different elements took the console from its unique design in 2000, to the Slim in 2004, to a good lighter and lower-power model of the Slim that returned to utilizing an inside energy provide with out rising the scale of the console in any respect.

Over that very same span, the console’s worth dropped often and considerably, from $299 at launch to simply $129 by 2006 (the worth was lowered once more to $99 in 2009, deep into the PS3 period).

Or have a look at Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Its exterior design did not change as a lot through the years—the mid-generation “slim” refresh was truly solely somewhat smaller than the unique. However between late 2005 and early 2010, the CPU, GPU, and the GPU’s high-speed eDRAM reminiscence chip went from being constructed on a 90 nm course of, to 80 nm, to 65 nm, and eventually to a single 45 nm chip that mixed the CPU and GPU into one.

Over that point, the system’s energy provide fell from 203 W to 133 W, and the bottom worth fell from $300 to $200. The mid-generation 65nm refresh additionally considerably fastened the early consoles’ endemic “red ring of death” difficulty, which was brought on partly by the warmth that the older, bigger chips generated.

As you may see when evaluating these numerous consoles’ exterior and inside design revisions, shrinking the chips had a cascade of different useful and cost-lowering results: smaller energy provides, smaller enclosures that use much less steel and plastic, smaller heatsinks and cooling assemblies, and smaller and easier motherboard designs.

A slowdown of that development was already evident once we hit the PlayStation 4/Xbox One/Nintendo Change era, however technological enhancements and pricing reductions nonetheless adopted acquainted patterns. Each the mid-generation PS4 Slim and Xbox One S used a 16 nm processor as a substitute of the unique consoles’ 28 nm model, and every additionally had its worth lower by $100 over its lifetime (evaluating the Kinect-less Xbox One variant, and excluding the digital-only $249 Xbox One). The Change’s single die shrink, from 20nm to 16nm, did not include a worth lower, nevertheless it did enhance battery life and assist to allow the cheaper Change Lite variant.