It sounds like we’re going to learn more about a next-generation PlayStation sooner rather than later now that we have the PS5 Pro in our hands.
In early 2024, Sony Senior Vice President Naomi Matsuoka told Bloomberg the following: “Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle.” While she didn’t outright say that a PlayStation 6 is in the works, we can assume that the company is already looking ahead at its next console.
Despite there only being rumors to work with, it’s never too early to start speculating about the next-gen consoles. How will the PS6 compare to the PS5? Will any of the best games on PS5 make their way to the PS6? And what about upcoming PS5 games that are going to launch soon?
Nothing is set in stone, but it’s still fun to take a look at what the future of PlayStation may look like.
PS6 release date speculation
The biggest clue as to when a PS6 could come out, or at least may have been planned to at one point, points to 2027. This information comes from an official Microsoft court document as part of the Activision Blizzard acquisition: “By the time SIE launched the next generation of its PlayStation console (which is likely to occur around [redacted]), it would have lost access to Call of Duty.” The date is redacted here, but sleuths have connected the dots between this and the deal Microsoft offered Sony to keep Activision Blizzard games on PlayStation consoles until 2027. That would suggest that, at the earliest, Microsoft didn’t believe a new PlayStation would come before 2027.
If we look at past generations, that time frame falls in line with the life spans of past generations. The PlayStation 4 had seven years before the PS5 came out, and the PlayStation 3 was also around for seven years before its successor showed up. The PS5 launched in 2020, meaning 2027 would once again leave us with a seven-year console cycle. We wouldn’t put money on 2027 for sure, but anything from late 2027 onward feels like a safe bet.
A recent leaker named KeplerL2 released a report on NeoGaf in which they claimed the PS6 could be released sometime in 2027, which is a bit earlier than most expected. They deduced this date based on their reported knowledge of the PS6 chipset being nearly complete and ready for fabrication. Based on previous trends, the timeline between a chipset being finalized and entering fabrication and the console launching is about two years, leading to the 2027 estimate. As far as what chips the PS6 will reportedly be running on, KeplrL2 suggests that it will be a Zen6 running on N2 architecture and an early fork of gfx13, aka AMD RDNA5.
For those who may not be so familiar with chipsets and simply want to know what this means for the PS6, the short version is that it will easily eclipse what the PS5 is currently capable of. However, as with all leaks, this should only be taken as a rumor and not necessarily indicative of reality until Sony itself releases official information. Even if some of this were true, there is still time for plans to change regarding the chips and release date.
On the other hand, former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida spoke to VentureBeat about possible PS6 timing. When talking about the average console generation lifecycle putting the end of the PS5 generation around 2027, which is what the previous leaker suggested, Yoshida replied “I have no information about the next PlayStation, but it feels a bit too early for me to say. The PS5 generation was slowed down because of manufacturing issues. If the next PlayStation comes out in 2028, that feels right to me. It should be noted that Yoshida does not have any insider knowledge about when the PS6 will actually be released. That said, he had been working at PlayStation for over 30 years, previously acting as president of SIE, and would therefore have a good idea of what timescales the company works in and what the vision for a console launch would look like.
Given everything we’ve seen so far, 2028 sounds like the safer bet for a PS6 launch.
PS6 price
Until we know spec details or the launch date, the launch-day price of a PS6 is hard to estimate with any degree of certainty — but there are some data points we can look at to guess.
The mid-generation update PS5 Pro — an expensive but just worthwhile update compared to the base model PS5 — comes with a hefty price tag of $700, which Sony has repeatedly defended. Some analysts have viewed PS5 Pro pricing as a water-testing endeavor by Sony, looking to see how high it can push the price ahead of the PS6 launch. In an interview with Gamesbeat, said they expect the PS6, along with the next-gen Xbox, to launch at $600 despite the price hike on the PS5 Pro.
PS6 specs
Exact specifications for the PS6 are a bit scarce. Moore’s Law is Dead has stated that it knows “with 100% certainty that Sony will continue its partnership with AMD to power the PS6 and PS5 Pro.” This would make sense as this is the same chipset used in the PS5, so sticking with it would make things like backward compatibility and cross-generational games much easier. The next generation of AMD chips is planned to be released in 2025, so that could be what the PS6 is built with. That does lend some credence to the leak about the chipset mentioned previously that suggested a Zen6 running on N2 architecture and an early fork of gfx13, aka AMD RDNA5.
In fact, Reuters reported in September 2024 that Intel lost out on a bid to design the PS6 chipset back in 2022 to AMD. Should the PS6 use AMD chips as is being reported, this would make backward compatibility much easier since the PS5 and PS5 Pro both run on custom AMD chipsets.
We suspect a new SSD will be included as that was a major push in the PS5 to nearly cut out loading times, but no word has been leaked on that.
By the time a PS6 comes out, we would also expect at least 2TB of storage, especially if the console ends up being digital-only.
One interesting wrinkle when talking about specs is a new rumor from a somewhat reliable leaker reported on by Metro. According to them, Sony is creating two systems on a chip (SoCs) in preparation for the PS6 generation. This would imply two distinct consoles rather than two models like we saw with the digital and standard PS5s. This could be pointing toward a higher-end and lower-end version of the system that could hit two different price points, but some people think it signals a new handheld system alongside a PS6.
PS6 features
Insider Gaming claims to have a document regarding one very unique feature that is being worked on for the PS6 called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). This technology reportedly will allow games to run at either 4K at 120 frames per second (fps) or 8K at 60 fps, according to Insider Gaming. We’ve seen this technology in action with the PS5 Pro and it is already making games look and run far better than the base unit. It makes sense that we would see an improved version of this technology on the PS6 to push things even further.
