Former PC Planner and Insights Manager at PlayStation, Jerry Liu, who worked at the company between January 2021 and June 2023, has noted that his work at Sony helped the unit “grow from $0-300M in net revenue” over the span of three years.

To achieve this, his responsibilities included optimizing promotional strategies and forecasting budgets for PlayStation’s PC portfolio, providing insight and business cases to try and convince leadership to “pursue more aggressive pricing” strategies, analyzing the PlayStation back catalog, and developing forecast models and sales targets. Interestingly, he noted that his strategies for aggressive pricing led to an increase in gross revenue from PC releases by 25 percent.

Last month, a report had indicated that Sony was originally going to bring its recent and upcoming single-player titles—namely, last year’s Ghost of Yōtei and the upcoming Saros—to PC. However, the company has seemingly decided against this and has cancelled work on any ports that were in progress. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, those “familiar with the company’s plans” said that a “faction within PlayStation” was unsure about porting its first-party games over to PC to begin with.

A major reason for this was apparently the belief that it would harm the sales of PlayStation hardware in the long term. While PS5 sales would also be affected, subsequent console releases might have also started facing trouble, as well as the brand as a whole.

In a more recent forum post, Schreier had said that Sony was going to make its plans to stop releasing single-player games on PC official “at some point.” It is unknown, however, when this will be, and could range from a simple social media post to a comment to its investors during an earnings call.

Despite these plans, however, Sony wants to continue bringing multiplayer titles to PC alongside their PS5 releases. The immense success of Helldivers 2 likely had a role to play in this, and upcoming games like Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls and Horizon Hunters Gathering are already confirmed for PC releases. This move makes sense, since cross-platform multiplayer on these titles also ends up ensuring that PS5 players won’t have to worry about low player counts with PC players bolstering the game.

This also means that Death Stranding 2: On the Beach might very well be the last single-player PlayStation game to come out on PC. However, it is worth noting that Kojima Productions isn’t a first-party developer under PlayStation Studios. Sony simply published the game, and likely has little say on whether or not the studio brings its games to more platforms. A report from last week has indicated that its PC launch was quite successful too, with more than 2 million sales since release.

NYU video game professor and industry researcher Joost van Dreunen believes that this is due to US policies designed to disrupt the global economy. Citing moves like imposing import tariffs, van Dreunen pointed out that indications of rising hardware costs were already becoming evident as far back as 2024.

“The relentless effort by the US administration to disrupt the global economy is backfiring exactly as expected,” said van Dreunen. “Already in 2024 did console manufacturers signal that any tariffs would have a major impact on pricing. The costs for DRAM and NAND have surged 80-90 percent since the start of 2026.”

Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of consultancy firm Kantan Games, believes that with its recent price hikes, Sony has started preparing for further pricing fluctuations in the future. He noted that this also gives the company “some leeway to lower prices and offer ‘deals’ if things surprisingly get better.” As for the next generation of console hardware, Dr Toto believes that there will be at least one PS6 SKU priced at $999. van Dreunen agrees, saying “we’re quickly moving towards a world in which a $1,000 console will be the norm, and console gaming will become a luxury expenditure.”

“They really don’t want to raise prices on their hardware, because that part is usually a heavily subsidized part of the equation, and the sale of games is the gravity point of their revenue model. I predict that the next generation of console hardware will start at a 50% higher price point than the current one did.”

Piscatella believes that Sony’s plans for the launch of the PS6, both the timing and pricing, “must be considered to be in flux,” owing to “far too much volatility and uncertainty.”

“Could we see $1k+ pricing? Sure, that’s possible,” he continued. “Would really hate to see that, but it’s possible. Could it be 2027? Maybe. Could it be 2028? Sure. Later? Why not. I do not think that current market conditions allow for much certainty at all in the hardware market. Hopefully, the conditions improve. They could get worse. Who knows?”

Sony’s recent price hikes will affect markets worldwide from April 2nd, as the base PS5’s price goes up by $100, while the PS5 Pro is going up by $150. Meanwhile, the PlayStation Portal cost is rising by $50.

The announcement led to Ampere Analysis’ Piers Harding-Rolls stating that Sony’s move might be followed by Microsoft and Nintendo for their own current-gen consoles—the Xbox Series X/S and the Switch 2. “With no sign of prices easing largely due to demand for AI infrastructure, Sony will have made the move to protect its slim hardware margins,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a surprise if Microsoft and Nintendo followed suit in the not-too-distant future.”

In his post, Howe said that he was in charge of creating a shot-for-shot recreation of one of the game’s early cutscenes as part of the pitch to show Sony what it would look like. He has also made it clear that the cutscene’s recreation was not commissioned by Sony, and the PlayStation maker had no involvement in the proposal. Further in the comments for his post, Howe also credits Sanzaru Games senior character artist Tyler Bronis for his work on the animated short.

“A long while back, a team was assembled to pitch a remaster of Jak & Daxter. I was asked to animate an IGC shot-for-shot, to show what this updated version would look like,” wrote Howe. “To be abundantly clear: this was NOT commissioned by Sony, nor did they have any involvement in our proposal — this was essentially a fan pitch to try and gain their permission.”

The cutscene’s recreation is quite an impressive one, seemingly making use of modern technologies to render things like the fur on Daxter’s body, and more modern implementations of things like particle effects, which were much harder to render on the original’s PS2 hardware.

In his own post about the project, Bronis revealed that the pitch was worked on back in 2019. His own involvement at the time revolved around remaking Jak’s model, along with environment art and lighting, and the camera work and editing.

The video has seen a positive response, with former Naughty Dog writer and narrative designer Josh Scherr commenting about how well it was pulled off. Scherr had worked on the Jak and Daxter games, and was an animator on this scene in particular.

“This is wild – I was the animator on the original scene way back in 2001,” wrote Scherr. “Y’all did a great job! On the original game each cinematics animator had to churn out 30 seconds of animation per week, so it’s nice to see it looking more polished.”

Currently, the Jak and Daxter series is essentially missing. The last time we got any official word on the franchise was back in 2021, with Naughty Dog co-president Evan Wells confirming that a new Jak and Daxter game was not in the works. In a discussion with Insomniac’s Ted Price, Wells was asked whether Naughty Dog still gets requests for a new entry in the franchise.

“We do, in fact,” he replied. “We’ve had a couple of Twitter campaigns where people have been tweeting us every single day [saying] ‘I want a new Jak and Daxter, I want a new Jak and Daxter’, and they aren’t just simple 280-character tweets, they have Photoshopped memes and everything they’re including on a daily basis, and the effort has got to be significant.”

“And I hate to break it to them, [but] we do not have Jak and Daxter here in development right now.”

In an example using Stellar Blade, one user was offered a 70 percent discount, bringing the game’s price down to $20.99, while another was only getting a 43 percent discount, bringing the price to $39.89.

While the factors taken into account when deciding these varying discount rates is currently unknown, the report speculates the age of a PlayStation account being one of them. Others might include average play time, and the most recent log in time.

It is worth noting that these varied discounts have only been showing up on PS5-exclusive games for the time being. This indicates that Sony might first be testing how well it works with first-party games before it is rolled out. It is also unknown how much of a role third-party publishers will play in deciding how much to discount their games based on Sony’s nebulous criteria.

Sony is no stranger to making changes to the PlayStation Store. However, major changes like dynamic pricing would likely come with an official announcement. The closest the company has gotten to such a major shift in how its store functions was when it introduced the current tier-based incarnation of PlayStation Plus.

While, during the PS4 days, PlayStation Plus simply offered online multiplayer access along with a monthly slate of games. Back in 2022, however, the company introduced three tiers for the subscription service, each offering different benefits. While players can still get monthly games and online multiplayer with the PlayStation Plus Essential tier, upgrading to Extra or Premium offers more, like expanded game libraries and access to classic titles from PS1, PS2 and PSP.

August 2025 also saw another great update to the PlayStation Store, making the process of asking for refunds easier. There are a few conditions for a refund to be granted, however. A game must have been bought in the last fourteen days, and a refund request will be denied if the game was downloaded at any point. In-game purchases, like GTA$ packs, are also eligible for refunds, as long as the game itself hasn’t been launched in the time between the purchase and the refund.

As for other aspects of PlayStation that might see upgrades in the future, PS5 and PS5 Pro lead architect Mark Cerny has said that Sony has been working with AMD to bring FSR Frame Generation to “PlayStation platforms.” While he noted that there won’t be any such release this year, he spoke about the improvements made to AMD’s FSR technology, dubbed FSR Redstone, which also helped in improving PSSR’s upscaling.

“Just to clarify a few things about the collaboration with AMD, the new PSSR uses the same core co-developed algorithm as FSR Redstone’s Upscaling (to avoid confusion, I’ll use the new names today rather than FSR4),” Cerny shared. “FSR Frame Generation is also based on co-developed technology (or as my good friend [SVP and GM of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group] Jack Huynh puts it, ‘co-engineered technology’). I’m very happy with how that work is progressing, and an equivalent frame generation library should be seen at some point on PlayStation platforms.”

“You’re gonna mourn what could have been because we were making a hell of a game,” Blundell said. While he clearly noted that he didn’t bear any ill will towards Sony, and went as far as to refer to the company as having been a great partner, he went on to say that “it f****** sucked.” However, he wasn’t able to reveal any more details about the event. “We have to respect confidentiality so we can’t go into every gory detail,” he said.

Blundell went on to note that the decision to shut down Dark Outlaw Games largely came about due to changing times. He still can’t help but express sadness over what could have been with the studio’s project. “I can reassure you—and it’s been reassured to me—it’s just times change, focus changes, but the project we were doing and what we were doing, fans would have been very excited,” he said.

JCbackfire expressed a similar kind of sadness, noting that in his five years of having worked in the game development industry, none of his work will be seen by players. However, the two are still optimistic about the future. “The sentiment is definitely we’re down but not out,” he said.

Reports indicating that Sony is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games earlier this week, courtesy of Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier. In a social media post, he said that alongside the studio’s closure, Sony was also making cuts in mobile game development. This has seemingly impacted “around” 50 people.

Schreier also indicated that Sony’s focus moving forward will be on a “few select high-impact projects,” while the company continued to support projects like MLB The Show Mobile and Ratchet and Clank: Ranger Rumble.

Dark Outlaw Games was unveiled in March 2025. Founded by Jason Blundell – a veteran developer who had previously worked at Treyarch on the Call of Duty: Black Ops franchise and considered one of the masterminds behind Call of Duty Zombies – Dark Outlaw Games was going to be a first-party PlayStation studio. Considering the pedigree, it was likely focused on developing shooters.

While the studio had only been announced this time last year, work had apparently already been going on in secret. Speaking to Giant Bomb co-founder Jeff Gerstmann on his Bonus Podcast, Blundell said that the team had been “working away in the shadows for a while,” before the studio was officially unveiled. At the time, he said that the studio was still growing, and that more details would be revealed about its projects “when we’ve got something to talk about.”

It is worth noting that Blundell had previously co-founded another studio that was working with PlayStation – Deviation Games back in 2021. However, Blundell left the studio in 2022, with Deviation Games itself being shut down in 2024 without having released any games.

“The current strategy is that it will be fixed, i.e. even if there are updated network parameters for the most recent PS5 Pro games, those parameters will not be applied when the Enhance feature is used,” he explained. “That allows the PS5 Pro community to provide clear guidance on how and when to use the Enhance feature – conversely, if the parameters were continually being updated then that guidance would be much harder to provide. Having said that, we are in very early days here at PlayStation with these ML libraries, and I’m certain our strategy will evolve over time.”

The option essentially allows games that can make use of the upgraded version of PSSR to toggle between it and the older version, giving players more options in how they want their game to look. However, Cerny’s last line about machine learning libraries still being in their “early days” for PlayStation might give players more hope about the option itself also getting upgrades. As it currently stands, however, developers will need to manually update games to support newer versions of PSSR as they come out.

Cerny also spoke about other improvements that have been made to PSSR over time. The newer version, for instance, is faster than the original, which in turn allowed Sony to implement the “Enhance PSSR Image Quality” option to begin with, thus forcefully upgrading the visuals for any game that might support the upscaler.

“The new PSSR is something like 100 microseconds faster than the original,” he explained. “Which in turn allowed us to implement the ‘Enhance PSSR Image Quality’ option to force-upgrade all PSSR-supported games. If you use it, frame drops should become oh-so-slightly rarer.”

In the same interview, Cerny had also revealed that, through Sony’s partnership with AMD, frame generation will also be a feature that makes its way to PlayStation consoles in the future. This, he said, was thanks to a new version of FSR, dubbed FSR Redstone, which features frame generation algorithms that have been co-developed by the two companies.

“Just to clarify a few things about the collaboration with AMD, the new PSSR uses the same core co-developed algorithm as FSR Redstone’s Upscaling (to avoid confusion, I’ll use the new names today rather than FSR4),” Cerny shared. “FSR Frame Generation is also based on co-developed technology (or as my good friend [SVP and GM of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group] Jack Huynh puts it, ‘co-engineered technology’). I’m very happy with how that work is progressing, and an equivalent frame generation library should be seen at some point on PlayStation platforms.”

Cerny is yet to offer any more comment about what these “PlayStation platforms” might be, however. “All I can say is that we have no more releases planned for this year. And I look forward to discussing this more in the future!”

He spoke about the development of FSR Redstone, which was also used to bring improvements to PSSR upscaling. Similarly, FSR Frame Generation has also been described by him as being based on “co-developed technology”. This work between the two companies has been progressing, and Cerny is quite happy with how it has been turning out so far.

“Just to clarify a few things about the collaboration with AMD, the new PSSR uses the same core co-developed algorithm as FSR Redstone’s Upscaling (to avoid confusion, I’ll use the new names today rather than FSR4),” Cerny shared. “FSR Frame Generation is also based on co-developed technology (or as my good friend [SVP and GM of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group] Jack Huynh puts it, ‘co-engineered technology’). I’m very happy with how that work is progressing, and an equivalent frame generation library should be seen at some point on PlayStation platforms.”

As for what these “PlayStation platforms” might be, Cerny noted that Sony doesn’t have any major technological releases planned for this year. “All I can say is that we have no more releases planned for this year. And I look forward to discussing this more in the future!”

Back in October, Cerny and Huynh had discussed the kinds of improvements that the two companies had been working on. The collaboration involves bringing major graphical improvements while also reducing processing overhead.

“The challenge comes in how we implement these systems,” said Cerny in a video. “The neural networks found in technologies like FSR and PSSR are incredibly demanding on the GPU. They’re both computationally intensive and require speedy access to large amounts of memory. The nature of the GPU fights us here.”

Among the technologies introduced in the video were Neural Arrays, which would involve GPU compute units tackling larger problems together rather than each one tackling smaller problems individually.

“We’re not linking the entire GPU into one mega unit,” explained Huynh. “That would be a cable management nightmare. But we are connecting [compute units] within each shader engine in a smart, efficient way. And that changes the game for neural rendering. Bigger [machine learning] models, less overhead, more efficiency, and way more scalability as workloads grow.”

Along with Neural Arrays, the two also discussed Radiance Cores, which are built with Neural Radiance Caching as their foundation. The technology will handle ray tracing and path tracing in real-time, and will ultimately constitute a “brand new rendering approach for AMD,” said Huynh.

More recently, Sony released an upgraded version of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, which made its debut on PS5 Pro with the release of Resident Evil Requiem. The feature is gradually rolling out to other titles, including Silent Hill 2 Remake, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Nioh 3, and Cyberpunk 2077, among others.

Rumors have indicated that Sony and Microsoft had previously been aiming for a 2027 launch window for their respective consoles. However, the memory shortage struck, which led to new reports coming out about how the two companies might push their release plans back. One such report, from back in January, came from Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson, who noted that there were “ongoing talks at the high levels” in both companies about the launch windows.

Industry analysts have also chimed in with similar thoughts. MST Financial’s senior research analyst David Gibson stated his belief earlier this year that Sony might end up extending the lifecycle of the PS5, and that the PS6 could be “delayed longer than many expected.” Both of these reports cited the lack of stability in RAM prices as being the major factor at play.

A more recent report, courtesy of industry insider KeplerL2, indicated that both Sony and Microsoft are hanging on to their originally-planned Holiday 2027 launch windows. The statement fell in line with a similar claim made by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, who spoke about logistical issues playing a key role in Sony sticking to its plans. While both companies have likely been facing issues thanks to memory shortages, a delay to late 2028 or even 2029 is considered unlikely since it would end up costing the company more money to disrupt its plans than it would to simply launch the console and eat any inflated costs.

The YouTuber also cited sources believing that the memory situation will get “significantly better” by the end of 2026, and “a lot better” by the end of 2027. Ultimately, the decision on when to launch the PS6 will likely be made “right before they start manufacturing at TSCM” at the start of 2027.

Both the PS6 and Microsoft’s Project Helix are rumored to run on cutting-edge chips designed by AMD, with the former’s APU being codenamed Orion and the latter’s being Magnus. Project Helix is believed to be more powerful than the PS6 thanks in no small part to its larger die size and higher number of compute units. However, while the difference might be more pronounced on paper, actual real-world performance is expected to be “basically not that meaningful.”

Project Helix is rumored to have 26 percent more compute units than the PS6, giving it a significant edge on paper. For comparison, the Xbox Series X also has more compute units than the PS5 by around 44 percent. Despite this, however, we saw little difference in gameplay performance from either of the consoles during their lifetimes.

According to Digital Foundry, the difference between the two next-gen consoles is likely to come down to the fact that Project Helix has around 26 percent more compute units than the PS6. For the sake of comparison, the Xbox Series X has 44 percent more compute units than the PS5, with the latter having faster CUs. They made a note of the fact that the current generation of consoles didn’t really see a meaningful difference when it comes to quality or frame rate across most titles, largely thanks to more modern software features like dynamic resolution and image upscaling through FSR.

Industry insider KeplerL2 took to the NeoGAF forums to add their own thoughts on the matter, noting that the gulf of power between the two consoles will be wider than what we saw between PS5 and Xbox Series X. While the latter had 20 percent higher TFLOPS (trillion floating point operations per second), along with 20 percent more LLC (last level cache) and memory bandwidth paired with 18 percent lower front-end bandwidth, geometry rate and pixel fill rate when compared to the PS5, the Magnus APU powering Project Helix is slated to have around 25 percent higher TFLOPS than the PS6’s Orion APU, along with 33 percent higher front-end bandwidth, geometry rate, and pixel fill rate, as well as 140 percent more LLC and 20 percent more memory bandwidth.

Despite this, even KeplerL2 believes that this won’t amount to too much of a difference when it comes to real-world use and performance. It will come down to Project Helix being capable of higher frame rates than the PS6 in some cases, for example, or being able to handle path tracing where Sony’s system can only do regular raytracing.

“It’s definitely a bigger difference than this gen,” wrote KeplerL2. “XSX has 20% higher TFlops and Texture Fill rate plus 20% more LLC and memory bandwidth but 18% lower Front-End bandwidth, Geometry rate and Pixel Fill rate. For Magnus it’s ~25% higher TFlops/Tex rate, ~33% higher Front-end BW, Geom rate, Pixel rate plus 140% more LLC and 20% more memory bandwidth.”

“That said, I agree that it’s not enough to make a huge difference, like Magnus running something at 60 FPS while the PS6 can only handle 30 FPS, or running Path Tracing in a game where the PS6 can only handle RT.”

The insider went on to note that, while the hardware differences are big on paper, in practice, it will likely come down to Project Helix being able to run games at higher internal resolutions before the image is upscaled through FSR than the PS6. “I mean that the [hardware] difference is not big enough to allow that to happen,” they wrote. “In most cases I expect Magnus to run higher internal res (e.g PS6 1080p upscaled to 4K, Magnus 1440P upscaled to 4K) or using slightly higher quality settings.”

However, the major difference between Project Helix and the PS6 is expected to be in pricing. While Sony will likely stick to its current console pricing strategies to help grow its user base, Microsoft’s console is expected to be much more expensive. Digital Foundry’s Oliver Mackenzie noted that, “Because the new Xbox Magnus die is also over 400mm squared, even though I think it is a dual die design, that is a considerably large die for a console. Whereas PS6 seems to be a die around PS5 Pro size, as it’s a very svelte die that’s monolithic, so that should be cheaper to produce just by its nature as well.” The bill of materials for Project Helix due to its larger die size is expected to be considerably higher.

Interestingly, KeplerL2’s claims of a 2027 release window fall in line with a previous report by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, who claimed earlier this month that Sony is unlikely to push back its console launch plans. He noted that these kinds of delays tend to cost companies more than just simply releasing the hardware even if they have to take a hit on pricing because of RAM shortages.

In his report, he also noted that, according to sources familiar with the issue, the global memory situation is expected to get “significantly better” by the end of 2026, and “a lot better” by the end of next year.

During the ongoing Game Developers Conference, Xbox vice president Jason Ronald confirmed that alpha test kits for Project Helix’s development kits will be shipped to developers next year. He also revealed some more details about the kind of hardware that the new console will run on.

“Project Helix is powered by a custom AMD [system on chip] and co-designed for the next generation of DirectX and FSR to unlock what comes next,” he said. “It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition. The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players.”

Reports have indicated that the Magnus APU powering Project Helix will have 30 percent more compute units than the Xbox Series X. These compute units are also slated to be around 65 percent faster. Combined with the fact that the hardware is based on AMD’s newer RDNA 5 architecture, the console is likely to be quite a bit more efficient and powerful than its predecessor. As for how much it will cost, Microsoft is yet to reveal any concrete details for now. However, the bill of materials is likely quite high, and the company is expected to sell the next-gen console for between $999 and $1,200.

As for the PS6, the console is rumored to be powered by AMD’s Orion chip, which comes in at 280 mm-squared in area and is being fabricated on TSMC’s 3 nm process. The GPU is expected to run on 54 RDNA 5 compute units, and the CPU will feature 8 Zen 6c cores, paired with two Zen 6 low-power cores dedicated to handling the console’s operating system. This will reportedly result in an overall 20 percent boost in the CPU power available for running games in the next-gen console.

For more, check out our thoughts on why the PS6’s rumored 30 GB of GDDR7 memory has the potential to be a game-changer.