As depressing as next-gen news can get, especially with memory shortages and whatnot, rest assured: They can only get worse. Insider Kepler_L2, who recently claimed the PS6 was taped out for 40 TFLOPS while Project Helix is 56 TFLOPS, alleged that the former’s bill of materials may be even worse than previously reported.
Responding to another NeoGAF user, they said, “RAM + NAND alone is over $680” for the PS6. If that doesn’t even include the GPU, CPU and other components, then one can only imagine the console’s total cost. It may even surpass $1,000, especially since the bill of materials allegedly approached that months ago.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino also famously said last June that the company doesn’t “intend to sell hardware at significant losses.” However, he also said, “We are carefully monitoring the market and continuing to evaluate our approach,” noting the importance of making “every effort to ensure that customers fully understand the value we provide in relation to pricing.”
Of course, several months later, he was unsure when the next PlayStation will launch, and that there are certainly challenges to overcome given the current state of the world. Whether there’s a plan to subsidize the PS6, even until RAM costs drop, remains to be seen.
But you probably shouldn’t expect next-gen consoles to be delayed – various reports claim it’s full steam ahead for late 2027, and that apparently includes Project Helix. Given that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said memory shortages will affect availability and pricing for the next-gen console, it wouldn’t be surprising to see it also exceed $1,000.
