Sony PlayStation 4 Preview: 5 Tech Stocks To Watch

The growth in tablet and smartphones will continue to change the dynamics of home entertainment. Mobile gaming will compete for the budget of console gaming. With updates on the way, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Xbox and Sony’s (SNE) PS3 upgrades could strengthen interest back to the living room. [Related: Weak Game Sales Are No Problem for this Stock]

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Sony’s PlayStation 4 will have the following specifications, according to a report from game site Kotaku:

·      Four dual-core Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Bulldozer processors
·      AMD Graphics processor
·      8GB RAM
·      160GB Hard Drive

There are a number of tech stocks to watch in light of the upcoming PS4 build.

AMD, whose shares recently bounced from a low of $1.81, is now up over 55% from that level. The chip maker has a market capitalization of just $2B. Intel is $104 billion in size, while graphics chip maker NVIDIA is around 4 times bigger than AMD at $7.75 billion.

Sony appears to have learnt from its experience with the PS3 that expensive, technologically-leading parts do not equate to stronger sales. By using less expensive but high-performance parts, Sony could keep the hardware costs down.

Microsoft, whose new console is expected to be announced at E3 in June 2013, is also expected to be using AMD as a supplier for its console.

Analysis

From the initial launch, console makers are releasing cheaper units to compete more effectively with inexpensive tablets and free games on smartphones. This bodes well for the industry, because profits and sales will be tied to games, not hardware.

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