There’s no question that continuing the success of the PlayStation 5 is one of Sony’s top priorities, especially given that its latest console is getting closer to five years old. The Japanese tech giant has yet to formally announce the PlayStation 6, but over the past few months there have been some developments that have allowed us some rare insight into what shape the eventual console might take.
In this post, we’re rounding up everything we know about Sony’s PlayStation 6, a potential new Sony handheld, and what the future of console gaming might look like. Keep checking back for more as we update this post as new information comes to light the closer we get to an eventual release date in the next few years.
PS6 Release Date, Potential Price
Since no formal announcement has been made for the PlayStation 6, there’s no release window to speak of. Taking the company’s previous console generation cadence into consideration, one could assume that a PS6 could release in 2027. That would be seven years after the PS5, which itself launched seven years after the PS3. But the gaming industry has changed dramatically since then, which is evident in how long support for the PS4 has stuck around this far into a new generation of hardware. Former PlayStation executive Shuhei Yoshida recently shared that “2028 feels right” when asked about the PS6, but notably hasn’t been at Sony since the end of 2024.
Despite this, Sony Interactive Entertainment‘s new president and CEO Hideaki Nishino stated in a business segment meeting in 2024 that “the future of the (PlayStation) platform is top of mind. We are committed to exploring a new and enhanced way for players to engage with our content and services.”
Pricing would be similarly difficult to estimate, especially without any indication of the hardware specification that Sony is targeting. Most recently, Sony released the PS5 Pro, which retailed for $700 and offers the most powerful console-gaming experience on the market. That was a $200 premium over the price of the PS5 at launch. Whether the PS6 matches the pricing of the best PS5 on the market or falls between the two has yet to be seen, and will likely be affected by the continuing trade war and inflation.
PS6 Potential Specs
Sony has committed to hardware in the face of the growing popularity of cloud-based services, saying that the majority of players still want a console that plays games locally.
“Cloud gaming is increasingly providing an additional option for players to access content, but our belief is that the majority of players continue to want to play and experience gaming through local execution without dependency on network conditions,” Nishino said. “PS5 and PS5 Pro have validated this thesis, I believe.”
There are no current concrete specifications for the PS6, but we do at least know that AMD will be providing hardware for the next-generation console. This shouldn’t be that surprising, given that AMD has powered both the PS4 and PS5, and could bode well for backwards compatibility.
PS6: The Role of AI
Sony’s partnership with AMD extends beyond hardware alone. Sony announced Project Amethyst in partnership with AMD when lead architect Mark Cerny revealed the news during the PS5 Pro breakdown, suggesting that the two companies are planning to work closely together on the future of graphical enhancements and the hardware that empowers it.
This has already borne fruit, with Cerny saying that the latest version on the PS5 Pro-exclusive upscaler, PSSR, will be using AMD’s recently released RDNA 4 suite of AI-powered upscaling options, which debuted with the RX 9070 series of graphics cards. Cerny says that the latest version of PSSR will be a drop-in replacement for the current implementation in 2026 and, more importantly, it will help inform the future of this technology for newer hardware.
While AMD is expected to release new graphics cards in 2026 that support a newer version of RDNA, Cerny cautioned that Sony isn’t exactly beholden to the same timelines. “AMD is moving extremely quickly,” Cerny said. “What I’m trying to do is prepare for the next generation of consoles, so my timeframe is multi-year here.”
What this all means is that hardware is no longer the only determining factor in the power of a future console. PSSR is only supported on the PS5 Pro currently, given its requirement for hardware to drive its AI-powered upscaling, and suggests the same will be true for the PS6. AMD is expected to power the next Xbox too, and the ways in which both Microsoft and Sony work with AMD might determine how well any platform-specific branches of these upscaling features work. Those alone could be big differentiators during the next console generation.
With that said, AMD Computing & Graphics SVP and GM Jack Huynh did state in a tweet about Project Amethyst that AMD and Sony are “developing high-quality neural networks that push the boundaries of real-time game graphics,” suggesting that the PS6 will hopefully be a meaningful leap forward in terms of visual rendering that some have suggested was lacking with the PS5.
A PlayStation Handheld With The PS6?
According to a Bloomberg report in 2024, Sony is potentially in the planning phases of a new gaming handheld–the company’s first since the PS Vita. The handheld is reportedly being designed to play PS5 games natively, but might still be years away from announcement if Sony decides to pursue its development.
Sony did launch the PS Portal in 2023, which initially acted solely as a means to play your PS5 games remotely over a local network. It has since received an update to add the ability to stream games from the cloud to expand its capabilities away from your console.
The PS Portal was reportedly initially conceived as a new handheld platform entirely before plans changed closer to its release. Given its popularity, and that of other handheld consoles such as the Nintendo Switch 2, Steam Deck, and Asus ROG Ally, Sony might be thinking the time is right for another attempt at the handheld market. Microsoft is planning the same too, albeit with a partnership with Asus for the time being.
