Kepler: The PlayStation 6 has 2 SoCs in Development

[KarlRemarx]

Crazy thar 2027 years feels too soon despite the fact it's 7 years. Tells a lot about this current generation.

PS5 sales are past peak and GTA magic will only work once. So better focus on the next device.

It feels too soon because it is too soon IMO. I don't know why they aren't clinging to this generation as hard as possible and get as many Christmasses out of GTA6, Wolverine etc PS5 bundles as possible, they've completely trounced their direct competitor even in an environment of multiple disastrous acquisitions and 1st party production failures on their part. Likewise, I don't see what benefit will be gained by trying to drag 3rd parties into another generation as the Switch 2 is peaking - Switch 2 sales will be simply impossible to ignore at that point, so their PS6 lineup is going to consist in large part of titles scoped for Switch 2 (and Series S, if you're already targeting that level of performance). This feels like it's primarily for their own benefit at the expense of the 3rd party publishers/studios whose support has to carry these systems, i.e. "we want to move on to a higher margin hardware lineup to satisfy shareholders".

If they're trying to move on out of fear of slowly leaching users to PC, I guarantee that any loss of PS5 users between now and 2027 will be trivial compared to what happens if they rush a 2027 PS6 to market which compares poorly to Nvidia's lineup by then. It'll be a disaster if day one PS6 titles aren't delivering full PT at 60fps, and that's being compared against even midrange 60-series Nvidia cards which are easily delivering it.

They should only move on when they can achieve a $400-$500 box that can leave baked lighting behind for good. Anything else is going to result in the most farcical array of crossgen hardware targets in the industry's history.

 

[ILikeFeet]

after seeing what Nvidia is doing with blackwell, I'd really rather Sony waits until AMD has something to answer to that. I'm expecting the next Playstation and Xbox to be pure path tracing boxes and I'm not sure they can get that with what AMD has now for RDNA5/UDNA

 

[fiendcode]

after seeing what Nvidia is doing with blackwell, I'd really rather Sony waits until AMD has something to answer to that. I'm expecting the next Playstation and Xbox to be pure path tracing boxes and I'm not sure they can get that with what AMD has now for RDNA5/UDNA

Being chained to AMD made them too late for "good" image reconstruction too with PS5 and Series X/S. It was incredibly unfortunate timing and the cycle probably repeats here (at least for Sony, MS not confirmed yet), wait for PS6 Pro and pay more for a much later and likely worse solution.

 

[enpleinjour]

KeplerL2

"PS6 is design complete and in pre-si validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year."

This sound like 2027 release.

No, more likely end of 2028.
A0 tapeout to prod for next gen Xbox was expected to be a 2 year+ process.

It feels too soon because it is too soon IMO. I don't know why they aren't clinging to this generation as hard as possible and get as many Christmasses out of GTA6, Wolverine etc PS5 bundles as possible, they've completely trounced their direct competitor even in an environment of multiple disastrous acquisitions and 1st party production failures on their part. Likewise, I don't see what benefit will be gained by trying to drag 3rd parties into another generation as the Switch 2 is peaking - Switch 2 sales will be simply impossible to ignore at that point, so their PS6 lineup is going to consist in large part of titles scoped for Switch 2 (and Series S, if you're already targeting that level of performance). This feels like it's primarily for their own benefit at the expense of the 3rd party publishers/studios whose support has to carry these systems, i.e. "we want to move on to a higher margin hardware lineup to satisfy shareholders".

If they're trying to move on out of fear of slowly leaching users to PC, I guarantee that any loss of PS5 users between now and 2027 will be trivial compared to what happens if they rush a 2027 PS6 to market which compares poorly to Nvidia's lineup by then. It'll be a disaster if day one PS6 titles aren't delivering full PT at 60fps, and that's being compared against even midrange 60-series Nvidia cards which are easily delivering it.

They should only move on when they can achieve a $400-$500 box that can leave baked lighting behind for good. Anything else is going to result in the most farcical array of crossgen hardware targets in the industry's history.

Nvidia's cards are meaningless to Playstation. A $600-$800 GPU is not competition to a Playstation. Even PS pro would not reach the prices such a PC build would.

 

[KarlRemarx]

Nvidia's cards are meaningless to Playstation. A $600-$800 GPU is not competition to a Playstation. Even PS pro would not reach the prices such a PC build would.

Meaningless?

“There’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had,” House told the publication. “We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality].”

The whole reason Pro models exist is their fear that worsening price vs performance lures customers away from PS and onto PC. You only need to look at the history of Steam's user growth and see how it exploded from the point that PC price vs performance was offering substantial improvement over PS4/XB1 at a reasonable price for enthusiasts (regardless of all the up-front cost comparisons that were peddled at that time too). If AMD don't start catching up to Nvidia then there will be a repeat of that process, ironically probably driven by sequels to some of the same software that helped cause the initial mass growth (Skyrim, Witcher 3, etc).

 

[enpleinjour]

Meaningless?


The whole reason Pro models exist is their fear that worsening price vs performance lures customers away from PS and onto PC. You only need to look at the history of Steam's user growth and see how it exploded from the point that PC price vs performance was offering substantial improvement over PS4/XB1 at a reasonable price for enthusiasts (regardless of all the up-front cost comparisons that were peddled at that time too). If AMD don't start catching up to Nvidia then there will be a repeat of that process, ironically probably driven by sequels to some of the same software that helped cause the initial mass growth (Skyrim, Witcher 3, etc).

Pro represensts 15% of PS userbase.
You claim reasonable price, but Nvidia mid range cards are the very opposite of reasonable pricing. In fact they are nowhere close to the price of consoles.

The PC system you say is competing against PS is going to cost $1200+ (more likely $1500). That isn't even in competition with PS Pro.

Its even possible the opposite happens: the majority of Steam growth is from China and emerging countries, where people have access to cheap PCs but cannot afford consoles as easily. PC costs at the high end will be less appealing to such demographics, cheap consoles can overtake here and in China, Playstation is rapidly growing.

 

[Terrell]

I don’t believe 2027 is when to expect PS6, if only because it will be really early for a new Unreal Engine release by that point. With Epic and SIE being so close at the hip following UE5, I can’t imagine that SIE will be releasing new hardware that won’t support all the features of the upcoming version of Unreal Engine, the thing SIE (and MS) uses to establish how “next-gen” their hardware is in their marketing.

 

[enpleinjour]

I don’t believe 2027 is when to expect PS6, if only because it will be really early for a new Unreal Engine release by that point. With Epic and SIE being so close at the hip following UE5, I can’t imagine that SIE will be releasing new hardware that won’t support all the features of the upcoming version of Unreal Engine, the thing SIE (and MS) uses to establish how “next-gen” their hardware is in their marketing.

2027 is incorrect from A0 Tapeout.
PS Pro which was not a new chip/process was 2 years before launch.
Next gen xbox was planned for 2.5-3 years after A0 tapeout.

A late 2025 A0 tapeout suggests a late 2028 launch.

 

[KarlRemarx]

Pro represensts 15% of PS userbase.
You claim reasonable price, but Nvidia mid range cards are the very opposite of reasonable pricing. In fact they are nowhere close to the price of consoles.

The PC system you say is competing against PS is going to cost $1200+ (more likely $1500). That isn't even in competition with PS Pro.

Its even possible the opposite happens: the majority of Steam growth is from China and emerging countries, where people have access to cheap PCs but cannot afford consoles as easily. PC costs at the high end will be less appealing to such demographics, cheap consoles can overtake here and in China, Playstation is rapidly growing.

You're repeating the same arguments about price that were claimed over 10 years ago, and we're living in the results of Sony's efforts to retain those users on the basis of price (they didn't retain them, which is why they're meeting them on Steam instead). Up-front price being higher matters much less at the enthusiast end (especially if you're pricing a Pro model at $700, that's already targeting a person with significant disposable income just for videogames), it's price vs performance that matters. If there is a midrange Nvidia GPU that matches or exceeds PS6 in year 1 there will be a second wave of enthusiast users that will leave for PC all over again. Even if it involves spending $1200 up-front to do that, many will (like they did before), because:

1) the value proposition for a home computer vs a set top box is different due to perceived utility
2) Sony's value offering for everything else (software and services) is poor (partially because it's where they achieve their margins, and partially because they are mediocre at it)
3) the perceived value of what users get access to in return can be higher than simple spec increases (Skyrim is the prime example of this, where the improved offering isn't simply "higher graphics settings and framerate" but also "access to thousands of transformative mods that are so prolific Bethesda themselves were using them in marketing material")

Again - Sony can absolutely mitigate this by offering their own product with good price vs performance, but that almost certainly requires a later launch than 2027 (at least 2028, like you said) and it requires a significant RT improvement over what's coming out of AMD at the moment.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I don’t believe 2027 is when to expect PS6, if only because it will be really early for a new Unreal Engine release by that point. With Epic and SIE being so close at the hip following UE5, I can’t imagine that SIE will be releasing new hardware that won’t support all the features of the upcoming version of Unreal Engine, the thing SIE (and MS) uses to establish how “next-gen” their hardware is in their marketing.

UE5 outstripping console hardware is an inevitability. UE will get playable path tracing long before Sony/MS/Nintendo can support it. hell, Nvidia's branch already supports it (and they're working to standardize these through DX and Vulkan)

 

[Terrell]

2027 is incorrect from A0 Tapeout.
PS Pro which was not a new chip/process was 2 years before launch.
Next gen xbox was planned for 2.5-3 years after A0 tapeout.

A late 2025 A0 tapeout suggests a late 2028 launch.

Even Late 2028 is likely early. The stretch between release of UE4 and UE5 was 8 years, and I don’t anticipate that gap shortening with UE6, and could be looking more at the kind of gap we saw between UE3 and UE4 (10 years).

UE5 outstripping console hardware is an inevitability. UE will get playable path tracing long before Sony/MS/Nintendo can support it. hell, Nvidia's branch already supports it (and they're working to standardize these through DX and Vulkan)

Even if I accept this position (which I clearly don’t), considering how UE is something SIE and MS have relied on to sell people on their consoles being newest-and-greatest for the entire duration of their hardware cycles since 2006 or so, that really doesn’t bode well for them if UE is going to outpace console hardware releases, does it?

 

[ILikeFeet]

Even if I accept this position (which I clearly don’t), considering how UE is something SIE and MS have relied on to sell people on their consoles being newest-and-greatest for the entire duration of their hardware cycles since 2006 or so, that really doesn’t bode well for them if UE is going to outpace console hardware releases, does it?

that's a problem for them to take up with AMD. Sony is doing just that, hence Project Amethyst. MS sets the floor with DirectX, so if they make a hypothetical DX13 with all these features and demand AMD makes a chip that supports it, that's also them whipping AMD into shape

 

[enpleinjour]

You're repeating the same arguments about price that were claimed over 10 years ago, and we're living in the results of Sony's efforts to retain those users on the basis of price (they didn't retain them, which is why they're meeting them on Steam instead).

That is plainly wrong.

PS5 is trending a few millon behind PS4 despite being hundreds more expensive and having 2 years of stock constraints.
Playstation has easily retained its users.

In fact it is growing its users in PC/mobile centric countries like US, China, Brazil and India.

Up-front price being higher matters much less at the enthusiast end (especially if you're pricing a Pro model at $700, that's already targeting a person with significant disposable income just for videogames), it's price vs performance that matters. If there is a midrange Nvidia GPU that matches or exceeds PS6 in year 1 there will be a second wave of enthusiast users that will leave for PC all over again. Even if it involves spending $1200 up-front to do that, many will (like they did before), because:

At $500, PS will get 100M+ users
At $700, PS Pro gets around 15M users

You are talking about a $1200-1500 build. By logical evidence the amount of PS users willing to pay this much is a fraction of a fraction and even after that there is little guarantee they even move.

Like you are talking about a few million potential users and saying thats a big threat to Playstations installbase of 120M.

And it to make matters worse we are long past diminshing returns on high end graphics. Vast majority of gamers do not even care about maxing graphics at 60FPS (PS -> PS Pro difference), let alone the even smaller difference of PS Pro and a $1200 PC.

 

[Terrell]

that's a problem for them to take up with AMD. Sony is doing just that, hence Project Amethyst. MS sets the floor with DirectX, so if they make a hypothetical DX13 with all these features and demand AMD makes a chip that supports it, that's also them whipping AMD into shape

Talking up this joint project also feels like a mistake when there’s no assurances that it’s going to bear fruit in a timely fashion, but that’s probably just me.

 

[derby_440]

No, more likely end of 2028.
A0 tapeout to prod for next gen Xbox was expected to be a 2 year+ process.

"If it follows PS5 schedule: Q4 2025 A0 tapeout, H1 2026 1st party dev kits, H2 2026 B0 tapeout, H1 2027 3rd party dev kits, H2 2027 launch." KeplerL2

Doubt Sony will wait a year on finished hardware like Nintendo. I think Sony can sell PS6 $499 digital with some loss. 24GB GDDR7 ram using 3Gb modules, similar to PS5 but with higher memory and bandwidth. Same SSD as PS5 as current one is more then good enough. No bluray.

 

[Godzilla]

"If it follows PS5 schedule: Q4 2025 A0 tapeout, H1 2026 1st party dev kits, H2 2026 B0 tapeout, H1 2027 3rd party dev kits, H2 2027 launch." KeplerL2

Doubt Sony will wait a year on finished hardware like Nintendo. I think Sony can sell PS6 $499 digital with some loss. 24GB GDDR7 ram using 3Gb modules, similar to PS5 but with higher memory and bandwidth. Same SSD as PS5 as current one is more then good enough. No bluray.

Considering they changed CEO because profits (margins) were going down, i doubt we will see them change their strategy so fast... again.

 

[Godzilla]

At $500, PS will get 100M+ users
At $700, PS Pro gets around 15M users

You are talking about a $1200-1500 build. By logical evidence the amount of PS users willing to pay this much is a fraction of a fraction and even after that there is little guarantee they even move.

Like you are talking about a few million potential users and saying thats a big threat to Playstations installbase of 120M.

And it to make matters worse we are long past diminshing returns on high end graphics. Vast majority of gamers do not even care about maxing graphics at 60FPS (PS -> PS Pro difference), let alone the even smaller difference of PS Pro and a $1200 PC.

Technically speaking, you do need to add the price of PS+ (that's $80 a year) and consider what a PC can do.

Going Price vs Price sounds like a flawed comparison when we are talking about much different systems overall, i suspect people are willing to pay more for a PC (be a laptop, etc...) than a console of comparative performance. Especially in this generation.

Just saying, as i don't have an actual opinion on the matter at hand, that regarding price, the difference perceived is probably a lot different than the gross difference.

 

[opaidiota]

I don't know about 2027, but obviously Sony will want to launch the console at the most aggressive price possible.

If that means having the chip ready in 2027, but only launching it in 2028, to have a more mature and cost-efficient manufacturing process, I think they would leave it until 2028.

But since they now have a new CEO just for hardware... who knows?

 

[Windom Earle]

Sony is releasing nearly as much hardware as they are new games at this point which is troubling to say the least. I'm getting Sega vibes where the 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast were released in such close proximity. They are scrambling on the hardware and software front after their pivot from GaaS.

 

[duvjones]

Considering they changed CEO because profits (margins) were going down, i doubt we will see them change their strategy so fast... again.

True but it does change the priorities of what they are looking for in the Next generation. I am assuming at this point that going forward, SIE is going to develop a system with better margins into it....

But that what that means for the actual hardware that will be released, I couldn't tell you.

 

[enpleinjour]

"If it follows PS5 schedule: Q4 2025 A0 tapeout, H1 2026 1st party dev kits, H2 2026 B0 tapeout, H1 2027 3rd party dev kits, H2 2027 launch." KeplerL2

Doubt Sony will wait a year on finished hardware like Nintendo. I think Sony can sell PS6 $499 digital with some loss. 24GB GDDR7 ram using 3Gb modules, similar to PS5 but with higher memory and bandwidth. Same SSD as PS5 as current one is more then good enough. No bluray.

PS5 Pro had:

A0 Q1 2023
B0 Q3 2023
3rd P devkits all Q4 2023
Launch Q4 2024

There is no way 3rd P devkits go out fully in H1 2027 and then launch is H2 2027. This is very wrong from Kepler. Devs need a lot more time.

Technically speaking, you do need to add the price of PS+ (that's $80 a year) and consider what a PC can do.

No you don't. PS+ is not mandatory in any way, plurality of PS users are largely offline and the biggest MP games are all F2P. Plus gated MP is a small percentage. Not to mention it has clear value of providing free games, you can't just pretend thats worth $0.

These are optional costs.

A cost that is often not talked about and is mandatory are electricity costs. A $1200 PC is not only significantly more expensive, but every year will have somwhere like $100 more in electricity costs for the player.

 

[Undead Warrior]

Considering they changed CEO because profits (margins) were going down, i doubt we will see them change their strategy so fast... again.

Well, to be fair, Sony can double their current margins instantly by simply stopping counting 100% of third party digital sales as revenue...

But they might in fact be holding that card in order to play it during the next console transition, yeah. Gotta fool shareholders somehow!

 

[duvjones]

I'm getting Sega vibes where the 32X, Saturn and Dreamcast were released in such close proximity.

Well, that is a disturbing ghost. Also eerie, with how right you are about that.

Gotta fool shareholders somehow!

Every so often, Nintendo brass gets rather curt with the shareholders, at times flat-out rejecting their judgement.
I would rather that than theses games.

 

[fiendcode]

A cost that is often not talked about and is mandatory are electricity costs. A $1200 PC is not only significantly more expensive, but every year will have somwhere like $100 more in electricity costs for the player.

How Could They Do Such A Thing - Penny Arcade

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

www.penny-arcade.com

 

[Undead Warrior]

Every so often, Nintendo brass gets rather curt with the shareholders, at times flat-out rejecting their judgement.
I would rather that than theses games.

The reason Nintendo can do that is because they're sitting on ten billion dollars in cash and liquid assets and, WiiU years notwithstanding*, have always made money. Sony's got a long way to go before they find their balls but man wouldn't that be something.

*Not coincidentally, the one time they had to bow to shareholder pressure and put games on mobile.

 

[awng782]

How Could They Do Such A Thing - Penny Arcade

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

www.penny-arcade.com

Lmao literally the first thing I thought of, didn't know the name of the comic though.

 

[duvjones]

The reason Nintendo can do that is because they're sitting on ten billion dollars in cash and liquid assets

It's was always a curious thing during boom era's when Nintendo simply stored some of the profits made. Shareholders tended to make a sink of it because.... "Why are you not spending like a drunk sailor?"

Nintendo's answer: For every NES, their is a 64/GC. For every Wii, there was a WiiU. That is the cash we come to when we are in a "emergency, break glass" situation, and since the industry always goes through a boom and bust period... their will always be a downturn. This cash is for that.

The day that SIE has that kind of thinking.... yeah, that would be something.

WiiU years notwithstanding

Even then, Nintendo was rather solvent.... the WiiU did eat into that fund, to the point that the Switch didn't see a price drop with the expressed purpose of replenishing it, but it did weather through that. I think the thing that force the mobile miss-adventure was the burn-rate of that fund... from what I have been told, it was pretty bad and shareholders were making a sink of it for years.

*Not coincidentally, the one time they had to bow to shareholder pressure and put games on mobile.

Yes but... it was also to do some fact finding. Mobile introduced several new paradigm to making a game, Nintendo was out of that loop. The only way to find it out was to go and do it, that said... shareholders assumed that this was permanent, that once in the space, they would stay in it despite Nintendo's clear intentions.
Sure, shareholders might have got what they wanted but it's such a massive pyrrhic victory that is it meaningless.

 

[enpleinjour]

How Could They Do Such A Thing - Penny Arcade

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

www.penny-arcade.com

What you posted makes no sense.

Consoles and PC have yearly costs that are significant from electricity use. You can't ignore a mandatory cost while propping a optional cost.

Imagine trying to buy a car and ignoring the mpg and fuel costs...

 

[TheSilentWombat]

Regardless of the reason, the PC Market is growing and the high-end console market is shrinking, so Sony needs to look at how to appeal to users, especially young users who lean strongly towards PC if they want to reverse that trend and continue to grow their business.

 

[KarlRemarx]

What you posted makes no sense.

Consoles and PC have yearly costs that are significant from electricity use. You can't ignore a mandatory cost while propping a optional cost.

Imagine trying to buy a car and ignoring the mpg and fuel costs...

Imagine tearing all the passenger seats out of the car and claiming adding them is merely "optional" and therefore shouldn't be counted towards a cost comparison. That's what you're doing.

 

[Person]

Small aside: To measure how many people are effected by "optional" costs, you can't just measure those who do pay the online subscription, but also all players who WOULD play a certain kind of game but choose not to because of the additional costs of online play. As such, you can't actually use the number of players who only play offline and F2P games as a measure of the low-impact of "optional" costs, because those players could be evidence of the exact opposite and the burden of such costs.

 

[enpleinjour]

Imagine tearing all the passenger seats out of the car and claiming adding them is merely "optional" and therefore shouldn't be counted towards a cost comparison. That's what you're doing.

PS+ is not mandatory.
Car seats are mandatory in a car.

What a poor analogy.

 

[KarlRemarx]

What a poor analogy.

Comparing buying a computer to maintaining a car, and pretending customers think in those terms when making a decision? Yes, an absolutely awful analogy, glad we agree.

 

[derby_440]

Technically speaking, you do need to add the price of PS+ (that's $80 a year) and consider what a PC can do.

Going Price vs Price sounds like a flawed comparison when we are talking about much different systems overall, i suspect people are willing to pay more for a PC (be a laptop, etc...) than a console of comparative performance. Especially in this generation.

Just saying, as i don't have an actual opinion on the matter at hand, that regarding price, the difference perceived is probably a lot different than the gross difference.

PS+ plus is only needed for paid MP games like COD. There is a reason 90% of COD players are on consoles. PvP MP modes on PC are hacked to death and not worth playing, recent exemple is BOP6. So for COD fans consoles are still the way to go to avoid cheaters.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Regarding the value proposition of a PS5 Pro, at least in Europe, a comparable PC costs only about €200 more. When you add the cost of PS+ and the fact that PC games are generally much cheaper because of key stores, you realize that there is essentially no value advantage here.

 

[derby_440]

Latest from Kepler.

"PS6 portable will be 15W SOC on 3nm."

"Hard to estimate performance since it's using an unreleased GPU uarch, but I think it's somewhere between XSS and PS5.."

 

[enpleinjour]

Probably the best time for Sony to reintroduce Playstation portables.

Most AAA devs simply cannot afford these days to make high end next gen only games, one because it requires too much salaried workers, and two because the installbase is now split between gens for 4+ years. Combine that with diminshing returns in how consumers see graphics and evolutions in gameplay from more compute being unpredictable, lower end SKU for a console is viable more than ever.

There's two ways to go about this. Series S, where its just a low end home console, or give the low end SKU a unique sell, which is portability. If true I think PS's way will be more successful, especially in the PS6 gen.

The portable has to be able to play all PS6 games though.

 

[Guarabyra]

So we're going to get another gen of games gimped to run on underwhelming hardware, oh well.

 

[Joseki]

Latest from Kepler.

"PS6 portable will be 15W SOC on 3nm."

"Hard to estimate performance since it's using an unreleased GPU uarch, but I think it's somewhere between XSS and PS5.."

It will be interesting to see how they position this device. Is it gonna a "PS6 Portable" with developers forced to make "PS6 Home" games available on it too?

Also I wonder when it's coming out and at what price.

 

[MegaXZero]

This will be a monumental ask from AAA developers. With series S the baseline was just a bit below the current gen, and we could see Devs attitude toward those ports. A PS6 portable that’s weaker than PS5 requiring games that play on next gen ps6 would be an even wider gap by a large margin. If it can’t play all PS6 games it massively weakens the ability to sell the device. There’s also the question of will it have a docked mode and what the profile is between the two modes. If it can’t dock that weakens the value proposition.

Being weaker at all compared to PS5 would also mean BC would need more work while also making PS5 “stuck” in rotation as it would be able to play any game PS6 portable would. It would also lower the baseline, making Switch 2 more competitive for ports. This just doesn’t seem like a great idea and I’m not sure what SIE would be thinking with this.

 

[Joseki]

I think it's in the industry's best interests to keep the floor as low as possible.

Development budgets are skyrocketing.

 

[Aostia82]

wit increase in dev costs, scalability of engines, hybrid form factor as a proven strong USP


I can see that: they offering 2 devices as Nintendo providing portable and docked modes in one product
this way, they can keep their "top notch" attitude with the home console, with lower/simpler asset/performance with a dedicated portable device

would be an evolution in-betweeen hybrid (as switch) and streaming dependent device (as portal)

 

[ILikeFeet]

So we're going to get another gen of games gimped to run on underwhelming hardware, oh well.

considering where games are at now and how they scale, this is a non-issue

 

[Belthazar]

I don't see much of a negative on this if the console is well designed, tbh.

Series S would've been fantastic if it only compromised on the GPU, it would make the games fairly scalable through resolution alone without changing much of anything really. The problem with that is that they cheapened out on stuff they shouldn't have, like RAM amount/speed, which makes game unnecessarily harder to optimize.

If Sony can make an affordable device where the only compromise is the GPU that will run PS6 games at under 1080p (upscaled to 4k with PSSR) instead of 4k, then I don't really see the problem.

 

[Undead Warrior]

I'm very curious to see how Sony plans to avoid another repeat of the Vita. Given their current issues, it seems very unlikely to me that they will commit the 1st party development resources necessary to support a platform, so unless the idea is to literally fill the library up with downports I'm a bit sceptical.

 

[Pikachupwnage]

Latest from Kepler.

"PS6 portable will be 15W SOC on 3nm."

"Hard to estimate performance since it's using an unreleased GPU uarch, but I think it's somewhere between XSS and PS5.."

That is utterly fantastic news for longterm Switch 2 third party support.

Between Steam Deck, The Xbox Handheld, Series S and PS6 portable....the amount of games that will be out of reach for it will be much lower.

I'm very curious to see how Sony plans to avoid another repeat of the Vita. Given their current issues, it seems very unlikely to me that they will commit the 1st party development resources necessary to support a platform, so unless the idea is to literally fill the library up with downports I'm a bit sceptical.

The best approach assuming they don't make the PS6 a full on hybrid(not likely) is basically the series X vs the S except the power gap is because its a handheld.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

So we're going to get another gen of games gimped to run on underwhelming hardware, oh well.

If true, console generations are quite literally over. We'll be getting cross-gen games until the late 2030s...

 

[ILikeFeet]

If true, console generations are quite literally over. We'll be getting cross-gen games until the late 2030s...

that's gonna be true right now. hardware is so good and games are so scalable that publishers would be hard pressed not to continue supporting them. for as much boo-hooing as people do about the Series S, there aren't many games it can't get. the same will be true of the Switch 2

 

[RDragon]

If true, console generations are quite literally over. We'll be getting cross-gen games until the late 2030s...

I think you and others may have to except that 'generations' as we known them are over. The signs became clear when people couldn't tell the different between PS5 and PS5 Pro games. This is also why people have been saying it feels like this generation barely started despite it being nearly five years.

It seems this generation prefers flexibility vs power, as seen with the Switch. Heck, Minecraft runs like utter ass on the Switch, yet people still play it.

 

[Belthazar]

So we're going to get another gen of games gimped to run on underwhelming hardware, oh well.

Honestly? Nowadays most of the games that skip the PS5 do so due to commercial reasons, not technical. And whenever they're technical reasons it's mostly due to not being able to run on a mechanical HD, which won't be a problem going forward.