How long until the next generation of Sony’s PlayStation, and what can you expect? Here’s all the info we have so far.
Update July 23, 2025: We’ve updated the article with new info.
The next generation of PlayStation is in the works. Here’s what we know so far about the PS6 (PlayStation 6).
While Sony has yet to reveal any official details about the PlayStation 6, leaks and industry analysts have shed some light on the next generation of consoles.
Is a PS6 definitely coming? Sony registered the brand names PS6 to PS10 back in 2019. We can therefore assume that the PlayStation series will continue for many years to come.
When will the PS6 be released? Release window
When will the PS6 be released? The latest rumors from the usually reliable leaker Detective Seeds suggest that the PS6 will not be officially unveiled until 2028. It is then expected to be released in late fall to early winter 2029
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He claims to have obtained this information from a developer at Sony.
According to a Playstation engineer working on the hardware side of the house; The PS6 will be announced in 2028 and release late fall/ early winter 2029.
Devs kits are estimated to be distributed to developers around Spring 2026 at the same time PS5 pro gets the upgrade to…
— Detective Seeds (@DetectiveSeeds) July 5, 2025
This contradicts the claim made by Sony CEO Hideaki Nishino in December 2024 that the PS5 would likely remain current for a similar length of time as the PS4.
That would be seven years, from 2020 to 2027. However, a lot may have changed since this statement was made.
PS6: The price – how much will the console cost?
How much will the PS6 cost? Originally, the PS6 was expected to cost between $500 and $700. Since the PS5 Pro already cost $699 or €800, it is likely that we will have to pay at least €800 for the PS6.
However, a higher price is also conceivable.
PS6: What new features are coming?
Here, too, our information is very limited at this point.
However, we do know from Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President at Sony Interactive Entertainment, that the leap from PS5 to PS6 will be at least as significant as that from PS4 to PS5.
“Technology is constantly evolving, and I think there is still more we can do.”
As a comparison, he cited the switch from HDD to SSD storage, which significantly reduced loading times and created more freedom for developers.
Will there be backward compatibility? Again, there is no official information from Sony, but we assume that the PS6 will be backward compatible with at least the PS5.
The reason for this is a report by Reuters, which discusses why Intel will not be supplying CPUs for PlayStation in the future.
Hardware specifications / specs
How much RAM will the console have? While Sony is still officially silent, experts are already venturing initial predictions about the PS6’s hardware. Particularly hotly debated: the RAM. According to Digital Foundry, the PS6 could be equipped with 24 gigabytes of RAM, as Digital Foundry suspects (see video below).
That would be a significant upgrade from the 16 gigabytes of the PS5 and 18 gigabytes of the PS5 Pro. This would mark Sony’s first serious foray into the gaming PC market, which would also be crucial for some graphics features:
- Ray tracing
- Texture quality
Further unconfirmed information comes from the well-known and previously reliable leaker Moores Law is Dead. He said that the PS6 is aiming for a resolution of 4K at 120 frames per second and 8K at 60 frames per second.
It remains to be seen whether 8K and 60 FPS are really feasible. After all, around four times more pixels have to be calculated than with 4K resolution. From today’s perspective, even 4K at 60 FPS is still difficult, especially in the console sector. However, the market remains difficult to assess, particularly due to rapid advances in AI.
One estimate assumes a potential GPU performance of 30 teraflops from the new AMD chip.
Will there be a drive in the PS6? According to a former Sony manager, the company cannot afford to do without a disc drive in the PS6. However, the PlayStation consoles, which have become increasingly slim, tell a different story. After all, only an external drive can be connected to the PS5 Pro.
What about ray tracing? We assume that the PS6 will focus much more on ray tracing than the PS5. The PS5 Pro already relies more on realistic lighting and reflections. This leads to the conclusion that the PS6 could deliver even more performance in this area.
However, as with everything else, no official information is available yet.
This is due to the data transfer rate of the fifth PCIe standard, which is not yet installed in the PS5. We strongly assume that the PS6 will use NVMe SSDs that transfer their data via PCIe 5.0. This will allow between 10 and 14 GB per second to be transferred, instead of the previous 5.5 GB per second.
PCIe 6.0 would also be conceivable, as the standard was already defined in 2022. This would theoretically enable up to 256 GB/s. However, the practical value would be lower.
So far, however, PCIe 6.0 hardware for end customers is still a long way off. And since we don’t know the development status of the PS6, it’s difficult to say which standard will be used. But it will certainly be better than PCIe 4.0.
The situation is similar with the WLAN standard: Wi-Fi 7 or even Wi-Fi 8 could well be used here.
Wi-Fi 7 is also considered a certainty here, as the standard is already used in the PS5 Pro.
AI will become important: Nvidia is a pioneer in AI, both in video games and in other areas. But its competitor AMD is not resting on its laurels. Accordingly, AMD announced that it too will rely on AI support for various calculations in the future.
PSSR, Sony’s AI upscaling technology, will also play an even greater role in the future. We have already seen on the PS5 Pro that PSSR produces better images than FSR in many respects.
PS6 – New controller on the horizon?
As our colleagues at GamePro have already noted, it could well be that the PS6 controller will feature hydraulic sticks, or analog sticks. This would allow the sticks to be pressed more precisely.
Virtual Reality
It is unclear how the PS6 will handle virtual reality, as the PlayStation VR2 for the PS5 has only just been released in 2023. Sony could continue to support the PSVR2 for the PS6 initially.
Are you looking forward to the PS6? What features are you expecting? Which game series could benefit most from the PS6’s improved hardware? Let us know in the comments!
