According to industry sources speaking to DigiTimes, suppliers like TSMC will start production on a redesign for the PlayStation 5 between Q2/Q3 2022. Suppliers include TSMC and as Dr. Serkan Toto notes on Twitter (having access to the pay-walled report), this will be a “new semi-customized” 6nm CPU from AMD. The reason for 6nm and not 5nm is because the latter is “too costly.”
Take this with a grain of salt, of course, but a slight redesign wouldn’t be completely out of the question for Sony. In its recent quarterly earnings call, CFO Hiroki Totoki said that drastically increasing the supply of consoles was “not likely” due to the shortage of semiconductors along with “other factors.” He did noted that a “secondary resource” or “changing the design” would help to cope with this.
If it does happen, this wouldn’t be something equivalent to, say, the PS4 Pro in terms of new features. But considering that supply shortages for the console will continue this year, it could serve as a more long-term solution to the company’s woes. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.