The current state of the hardware market has led many to speculate about the price and performance of next-generation consoles. According to known leaker Moore’s Law is Dead, Sony might try to improve the ratio of price to performance by making use of frame generation to offer smooth gameplay and visuals, while still keeping the overall price of the console down. In an episode of the Broken Silicon podcast, the leaker spoke about how a few leaked slides about the PS6’s use of AI, ray tracing, and PSSR will help in this regard.
“When I see things like AI, ray tracing, PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), keeping costs in control, whatever they’re going to do, they’re going to try to make it feel like 4K 120 [FPS] and cut costs after that,” he said. The podcast also discussed other potential ways Sony could make its next-generation console more enticing to potential buyers, like featuring an entirely new interface that made extensive use of voice recognition through AI models run locally on the system.
They also discussed the potential of more advanced AI-based features that use cloud hardware that could be locked behind various tiers of PlayStation Plus subscriptions.
There have recently been quite a few discussions about whether the recent spike in RAM prices might lead Sony to push back its planned 2027 launch of the PS6 to 2028 or beyond. However, known industry insider and leaker KeplerL2 believes that we will not see such a delay. While not elaborating much on the subject, KeplerL2 instead “liked” a post on NeoGAF about why Sony might go ahead with its 2027 plans.
“Delaying the console when it’s basically done doesn’t make any sense; they have TSMC contracts for production of APUs, maybe even GDDR7 contracts with memory makers, R&D done that cost them a few hundred millions,” wrote NeoGAF user Bojji. “PS5 sales are slowing down, and there is NO guarantee that memory prices will drop between now and 2030.”
“Releasing it in 2027 – several million units sold before 2030, when memory price drops you just lower price of the console and gain massive market share (on top of what you already sold). Releasing it in 2030 – no sales… in 2030 memory prices could be lower, the same, or higher. You start from scratch.”
KeplerL2 had also previously noted that a delay in launching the console is unlikely since AMD has reportedly begun testing and validating the chips that it has designed for the PS6. “You think AMD is going to waste resources doing validation on something they think will get delayed?”
If you’re curious about what kind of performance we can expect from the next-generation PlayStation, rumors have indicated that its hardware will be capable of boosting ray traced frame pacing by 10x. This would result in around 3.10 times the frame rate that is currently possible on the same game running on current-generation consoles. Using Assassin’s Creed Shadows as an example, the PS5 can generate a new frame every 5 milliseconds, while a PS6 will be able to do so every 1.35 milliseconds.
