MP1st reportedly spotted new casting calls under the codename “Shimmer” with Mari Ueda of Pivot Motion (which worked on Death Stranding 2: On the Beach) serving as casting director. The described scene allegedly involves a hijacked bus with multiple passengers, including a mother and her baby, various teenagers, and so on.

It’s the last reported requirement that’s so interesting – an “antagonistic character with a German accent.” Apparently described as “Mads Mikkelsen in Hannibal but with flair”, he’s reportedly slim, quiet, “intense” and “confident in a psychotic way.” Shooting allegedly starts in June, though the fact that so many showcases and events are taking place at the same time is likely a sheer coincidence.

However, this is unlikely to be a major villain akin to, say, Higgs from Death Stranding. Such details don’t typically emerge in casting calls (but rather through Kojima’s own announcements). Whether this scene is even for the game remains to be seen, but it’s at least indicative that production is underway.

While it was in the conceptual stage last year, Kojima confirmed that it and OD would be a major focus for the company in 2026. Thus far, three actors have been announced – Charlee Fraser, Ma Dong-Seok and Minami Hamabe. Could the year hold even more reveals? Stay tuned in the meantime.

The PS6 handheld, while running on a cheaper APU, also has to contend with including a display and a battery, bringing its BOM up to $493.69. The main PS6 home console—Orion—will seemingly cost $743 to manufacture thanks to its more expensive APU die, which sits at $110.50, as well as a $48 board. Moore’s Law is Dead uses a hypothetical PS6″S” for the sake of comparison – a low-powered console that could be sold alongside the handheld and home consoles which could end up being the least expensive SKU of the lot. Its BOM, when taking the PS6 handheld’s screen and battery out of the equation, comes in at around $404.38.

For contrast, the slim model of the PS5 with the disc drive costs Sony $507.03 to manufacture. Before the recent price hikes, the console was priced at $499, before going up to $649 earlier this month. This new price tag takes 30 percent import tariffs into account.

The PS6 handheld will seemingly cost $499, allowing Sony to make a minor profit off the hardware. Tariffs bring this price tag up to $649. Orion will be the most expensive of the bunch with a $749 price tag. However, if import tariffs continue by then, it will likely end up being priced at $949. The hypothetical PS6S would  work to counter this massive price tag by being priced at around $399.

The host of Moore’s Law is Dead, Tom, has noted that he used to estimate prices like this professionally when he still worked as an engineering account manager. However, as is the case with all rumors, until we get an official announcement by Sony, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, while memory prices have certainly played a major role in the BOMs for the upcoming consoles, it looks like Tom is expecting import tariffs to play a much larger role in deciding the pricing of the console. He also reiterated that the PS6 will likely cost around $750, and it is very unlikely that Sony will bring its price tag up to $1,000. “The longer people think the PS6 is $1,000, the more they’re going to claw their eyes out when they see it’s not because it’s not. It’s not going to be $1,000. It’s not,” he said.

Even taking the current geo-political landscape into account, and with the assumption that DRAM prices don’t come down by the time Sony wants to launch the consoles, Tom still predicts that the price will likely sit somewhere between $600 and $800.

This prediction runs counter to what analysts believe might happen, with some believing that the recent PS5 price hikes might lead to the PS6 costing 50 percent more.

Responding to a post about reports by KeplerL2 and Moore’s Law is Dead comes from both of them breathing “the same copium” with regards to the launch window, KeplerL2 asked, “You think AMD is gonna waste resources doing validation on something they think will get delayed?” One forum user expressed their belief that, while the PS6 handheld may launch in 2027, it would be “impossible, impractical, illogical for a force[d] 2027 launch” for the console, thanks to inflated costs and the fact that “PS5 and PS5 Pro still sell like hot cakes.”

This sparked a response from another forum user, Zathalus, which was “liked” by KeplerL2. In their post, Zathalus noted that the same logic could have also been applied to the PS5, since the PS4 was also selling well around the time of the console’s launch. There was also a component shortage around the same time, thanks to COVID affecting global supply chains.

“You can apply this logic to the PS5 launch,” they wrote. “The PS4 was selling extremely well in 2019, and component costs and shortages were hitting the industry hard due to COVID in 2020. The first interview regarding potential PS5 hardware was in April 2019, while we already had that Amethyst announcement regarding next-gen last year.”

Earlier this month, Moore’s Law is Dead noted recent updates to the PS5’s software development kit (SDK), which further emphasised optimising games for the console’s Low Power mode. While this has been believed to be a “Trojan horse” for Sony to ensure game compatibility with the PS6 handheld, the cadence of updates has indicated that the PS6 is “not many years away.”

“Up until now, devs would have to include PS5 Pro’s higher res textures and higher detail assets in every PS5 download regardless of if a given console was a Pro or not…but no longer,” said a source to Moore’s Law is Dead. “Devs can now specify downloads for PS4 + PS4 Pro, PS5, PS5 Pro, and PS5 Power Saver Mode. Yes, Power Saver Mode is getting its own Asset+Texture Packaging!”

“This would only be done if this ‘mode’ was going to be the entire basis of a new console that might need its own tweaks! You save no energy by using smaller textures.”

Another report from last month has indicated that the PS6 handheld will be more powerful than the Xbox Series S in both raster and ray tracing performance. Its use of more contemporary methods of AI-based image upscaling will also reportedly lead to better-quality visuals than the Nintendo Switch 2, which uses DLSS 2.

In a recreation of a diagram based on Sony’s development kit documentation, Moore’s Law is Dead has noted that Sony has offered advice on how CPU usage can be lowered for Power Saver mode. Compared to the base PS5 mode, which is able to run a game on 13 of its 16 cores, with 2 cores dedicated to operating system functions and one offering “support load”, Power Saver mode is meant to run games on 8 cores, leaving 5 cores unused and 3 cores for system and OS functions.

The latest set of leaks also includes mentions of a new feature for the PS6—PlayGo. Meant to be an answer to the Smart Delivery feature available on current-gen Xbox consoles, allowing players not to have to worry about whether they’re downloading the right version of a game for their console, PlayGo has already been introduced to the PS5’s SDK 13.

“Up until now, devs would have to include PS5 Pro’s higher res textures and higher detail assets in every PS5 download regardless of if a given console was a Pro or not…but no longer,” said a source to Moore’s Law is Dead. “Devs can now specify downloads for PS4 + PS4 Pro, PS5, PS5 Pro, and PS5 Power Saver Mode. Yes, Power Saver Mode is getting its own Asset+Texture Packaging!”

“This would only be done if this ‘mode’ was going to be the entire basis of a new console that might need its own tweaks! You save no energy by using smaller textures.”

Sony has also seemingly been taking steps to make game development for its next-gen consoles cheaper. Among these is a notice that has been sent to developers asking them to slow down on the legacy support for PSN features for PS4 games. While not too many details about this have been revealed, Moore’s Law is Dead has noted that these leaks indicate that the PS6 is “not many years away.”

As is the case with any rumor, it is best to take this latest set with a grain of salt. However, if it is true, it indicates that Sony is taking the challenges behind game development when console generations are transitioned quite seriously. Along with laying the groundwork for PS6 handheld game compatibility through the use of the PS5’s Power Saver mode, the company is also making sure that development teams don’t once more start facing ballooning budgets by recommending cutting down on things like support for previous-gen games’ online features.

For more on the PS6 handheld, take a look at another report indicating that it will be faster than the Xbox Series S. Also, check out what analysts say about the prices of next-gen consoles.

Responding to possible performance differences between the rumored handheld and other devices, KeplerL2 wrote that its GPU is “a bit ahead” of the Xbox Series S when it comes to raster performance. However, ray tracing and path tracing both put Sony’s handheld “massively ahead” of Microsoft’s lower-end console. When it comes to the Nintendo Switch 2, the insider has described the PS6 handheld as offering superior image quality thanks to its use of FSR 5 and PSSR 3, referring to them as having “better IQ than even current DLSS 4.5.” This is worth noting since the Switch 2 is capable of upscaling through DLSS 2.

As for the raw hardware powering the PS6 handheld, some specifications were leaked back in August 2025, indicating that its chip is based on a single die fabricated on a 3 nm process. While previously believed to have 4 Zen 6c cores, more recent reports indicate that it will also include 2 Zen 6 LP cores, along with 16 RDNA 5 compute units to handle graphics. It is expected to include 24 GB of memory, with transfers handled through a 192-bit LPDDR5X bus.

Reports from back in December have indicated that Sony’s relatively recent emphasis on the PS5’s Low-Power mode comes down to the company preparing developers to release games on the PS6 handheld. One report, courtesy of YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, indicated that Sony has been actively pushing its partner developers to ensure that games are compatible with the Low-Power mode.

This push includes the company asking developers not to simply lower the frame rates of their games. Rather, the emphasis is seemingly on lowering resolutions while still maintaining 60 FPS. “It is becoming glaringly obvious that Low-Power mode is a Trojan Horse for getting PS6 handheld support ready before its launch,” said one developer, according to the YouTuber, “and they honestly seemed a bit annoyed at how few devs directly support it so far.”

Another report further pushed this belief, indicating that newer Sony documentation put compatibility with Low-Power mode on high priority. Along with this, a developer seemingly reported that development kits for PS5 games had been patched to emphasize the mode.

“Sony just patched all of their SDKs for PS5 game development back to 1.0 to support Power Saver Mode (they’re currently on 12.0),” said a developer to Moore’s Law is Dead. “To be clear – they didn’t even do this for PS5 Pro support – if you had an old launch game on SDK 1.0 or 2.0, they’d tell you to ‘update to the latest SDK’ if you wanted to start working on adding direct PS5 Pro modes to your game. That means Power Saver Mode support is more important to them than Pro support!”

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.”

Leaker KeplerL2, who claims it’s still on track for release by Holiday 2027, said, “My current BOM (bill of materials) estimate for PS6 is ~$760, so I would say $699 is still possible with a reasonable subsidy. The question is if Sony will even bother now that Xbox is not direct competition anymore.”

When asked if this included a 1 TB or 2 TB SSD, they responded, “1TB Gen 5 SSD and no disk drive.” The latter isn’t especially surprising, considering the PS5 Pro doesn’t even have a disk drive. Now all we need is information on the lack of a vertical stand.

That still doesn’t answer whether the PS6 will retail for much higher than its manufacturing price. Again, time will tell – Sony hasn’t even officially announced it – but it would be odd if it sells the console for $900 and the PS5 Pro still retails for the same.

Also, while Xbox hasn’t put up a fight this generation against PlayStation, one has to wonder if things will change under the new Microsoft Gaming CEO, Asha Sharma. Project Helix, the next-gen Xbox, is rumored to be 25 percent faster than PS6, and even if this doesn’t lead to any meaningful performance margin, Microsoft’s alleged plan to sell different SKUs could be impactful. Time will tell, as always, so stay tuned for further updates.

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.