PS6 release date speculation, news and rumours on Sony's next console

So, what do we know? Well, there have been a few documents that suggest the wait for the next generation might be a bit longer than usual.

Thankfully, this means we won't have to fork out on new hardware for a while yet.

But when might we expect the PS6 release date to be?

Let's take a deep dive and speculate...

When will we get a PS6 release date?

The PS6 doesn't look likely to launch until at least 2028, according to official documents and speculation that has been made around them.

As part of the UK's Competition and Markets Authority investigation into Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard that took place in 2022, documents have revealed that Sony does not intend to release a new console until after 2027.

The interesting part of this document, which certainly seems to imply that Sony will not be launching the next PlayStation console on this side of 2027, reads as follows:

"Microsoft has offered to continue making Activision's games available on PlayStation only until 2027... By the time SIE launched the next generation of its PlayStation console (which is likely to occur around [redacted]), it would have lost access to Call of Duty and other Activision titles, making it extremely vulnerable to consumer switching and subsequent degradation in its competitiveness."

"Even assuming that SIE had the ability and resources to develop a similarly successful franchise to Call of Duty, it would take many, many years and billions of dollars to create a challenger to Call of Duty – and the example of EA's Battlefield shows that any such efforts would more than likely be unsuccessful."

This roughly falls in line with the length of recent console cycles, a cycle which Sony's Executive Vice President of Hardware Engineering and Operation Masayasu Ito confirmed would be repeated in an interview with Game Informer.
He said: "In the past, the cycle for a new platform was seven to 10 years, but in view of the very rapid development and evolution of technology, it’s really a six to seven-year platform cycle."

He added: "Therefore our thinking is that as far as a platform is concerned for the PS5, it’s a cycle of maybe six to seven years. But doing that, a platform lifecycle, we should be able to change the hardware itself and try to incorporate advancements in technology. That was the thinking behind it, and the test case of that thinking was the PS4 Pro that launched in the midway of the PS4 launch cycle."

Furthermore, Omdia senior analyst George Jijiashvili told IGN that 2028 is what the company is reciting too: "We are expecting the PS5 Pro to be released in late 2024 — a year later than the equivalent PS4 Pro in its lifecycle. With that logic, we believe Sony is looking to extend PS5’s life cycle, with PS6 most likely to launch in 2028."

So there's still likely a fair few years before Sony commits to its next console. If you've been on the fence, now is as good as time as any to upgrade to a PS5.

PS6 price: How much could it cost?

We'll have to rely on history to suggest what the new PS6 console might cost. The PS3 launched at £425 in the UK, while the PS4 arrived at a lower price of £349 and finally, the PS5 launched at £449, the highest of the three.

On the one hand, it's easy to imagine this upward trajectory continuing, but it's also important to note that the growing popularity of game streaming could counter this. Game streaming relies on a good internet connection to stream games to your console without any disc or download, both PlayStation and Xbox are introducing streaming facilities and they should be far more developed by the time the next console comes around.

Essentially, game streaming means that the bulk of the computing is done in the cloud and less demand is put on your console. This could mean that consoles of the future rely on super-fast internet connections but actually need less expensive, powerful internals. If we had to speculate, we'd expect it to be between £479 to £499.

The rise of AI in game development could speed up development time and free up resources too, even if it is a hugely controversial topic among creatives.

What could we expect from the PS6?

So, historical lessons suggest we'll get a console that costs around £400-£500, releases in 2027/2028 and is called the PS6. All that depends on the impact that game streaming has on the console market though.

The next generation of consoles will, no doubt, be a crucial one. While the PS5 has outsold the Xbox Series X, it's also the case that Microsoft has made some interesting competitive moves, buying up huge game studios like ZeniMax Media and even Activision Blizzard.

Following the ending of any agreements between Microsoft and Sony, there's a chance that new Call of Duty titles will be exclusive to Xbox by the time the PS6 launches.

However good the PS6 is, some players might be tempted by the Xbox alternative if that does happen. Luckily for Sony fans, PlayStation has been working on its mergers and acquisitions as well, picking up Destiny developers Bungie.

Sony's output on PS5 exclusives has been picking up as it has slowly dropped support of the now-outdated PS4, with the likes of Wolverine from Insomniac Games following hot on the heels of Spider-Man 2, Rise of the Rōnin, and Death Stranding 2 (to name a few).

With all of this going on, you can bet that IP and franchises will be right at the core of the next generation of the so-called console wars, and Sony will have plenty of competition.

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