With rumours indicating that Microsoft might be targeting 2027 as the launch window for its next-generation Xbox, it looks like Sony is on a similar track for the PlayStation 6. According to leaker KeplerL2 on the NeoGAF forums, Sony is also said to be targeting 2027. However, the company is also wary that there is also the potential for “unexpected delays”. Interestingly, taking the PS5’s 2020 launch into account, a 2027 launch for the next-gen console would mark a 7-year console cycle, which has been similar to the last couple of generations as well.
Along with this, KeplerL2 has also offered some insight about the new technologies that AMD and Sony recently spoke about in a video, resulting from the two companies working together as part of their partnership. For example, Neural Arrays have been described as a combination of workgroup clustering and global scratchpad sharing. The technology has seemingly existed in Nvidia’s hardware as well, but limited to the GPUs that the company makes for datacenters.
AMD’s new Radiance Core technology has also been described as being a more advanced take on Nvidia’s RT Cores, with more features that even the latter company’s current-generation RT cores from its Blackwell line-up. However, details about these features are currently unknown.
The new set of hardware that is rumoured to be powering the PS6 has been the subject of quite a few rumours and reports this year. A report from back in September indicated that the AMD Orion APU powering the PS6 will be capable of 5 to 10 times better ray tracing performance than the current-generation chips powering the PS5 and PS5 Pro. The chip is slated to be fabricated using TSMC’s 3 nm process, and the whole APU will measure 280 mm-squared.
The design of the Orion APU has been described as being a monolithic chip, and the power draw is said to be relatively low, coming in at 160 watts. The PS5 Pro, for the sake of context, takes up between 200 and 240 watts of power. The lower level of power draw likely means that the PS6 will end up not running quite as hot as its predecessors, which means that the cooling can also be more efficient.
Along with a full-fledged console, the PS6 generation will also reportedly feature a handheld that is capable of being hooked up to a dock, in a similar vein to the Nintendo Switch and the Switch 2. Both the main console as well as the handheld are also said to feature backwards compatibility with PS4 and PS5 games.
The chips powering these consoles will reportedly feature 16 RDNA5 compute units capable of running a 1.20 GHz in handheld mode, and can go up to 1.65 GHz when docked. The handheld is also said to be quite reasonably priced, and will likely cost less than the $999.99 price tag of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally x. The pricing range is said to fall somewhere between $399 and $499, while the home console is expected to cost between $549 and $699.
