PlayStation6 officially confirmed by Sony

Well, that was certainly unexpected: seemingly out of nowhere Sony and AMD made a joint announcement and brief technical presentation yesterday regarding some of the future graphics technologies they’ve been working on. This business synergy, codenamed Project Amethyst, was publicly disclosed last year as part of Sony’s push for the PlayStation5 Pro – which sports similar tech – but it will be taking a whole new meaning over the next few years as both AMD and Sony will be releasing products leveraging the results of this collaborative work.

There was something else announced during that somewhat technical presentation, though – something more important that these new graphics technologies themselves: without referring to it by name, Sony has now gone official with its plans to offer a successor to the PlayStation5, which can only be the already-leaked and widely-discussed PlayStation6.

The intent of bringing a new PlayStation to market at some point in the future has already been mentioned in Sony’s recent notes to investors, but in strokes so broad that they offered no concrete information. Mark Cerny, the company’s lead architect for the PlayStation, has now referred to it directly: “It is still very early for the technologies unveiled here today – they only exist in simulation right now – but the results are really promising and I’m excited about bringing them to a future console in a few years’ time”.

The PlayStation6 in on the way – but why did Sony confirm it now?

So the PlayStation6 is already in development – it has been for a couple of years at the very least, probably more – and it is officially on its way, yes…. but people closely following what’s happening in the videogames market kind of knew that already. In order for anyone to understand why Cerny’s statement is important, one first needs to understand how very unusual a move – and a choice – this has been for Sony specifically.

Taking a look at how the Japanese company has handled every PlayStation home console release so far makes one thing crystal clear: Sony does not usually like to talk about its next PS model for more than 18 months on average before actually bringing it to market. The longest time between an official announcement about a new PlayStation and its release was 18 months (in the case of the PS3) and the shortest just 5 months (in the case of the PS5). The reason is as simple as it is obvious: the earlier a new PlayStation is announced, the greater the risk of countless consumers not buying the current one, opting to wait for its successor instead.

Yes, what Cerny talked about does not amount to a proper Sony PlayStation announcement by any means – plus, there’ve been times when the company talked about a future PlayStation way before officially revealing it in the past. But if rumors currently making the rounds on the Web are true, then the lead architect of the PlayStation is talking about the PS6 two full years, at the very least, before it’s supposedly planned for release.

This is unprecedented. Sony may not be losing many customers because of Cerny’s statement – the type of consumer interested in technical gaming console details already has a PS5 – but… let’s face it: in some people’s minds the countdown to November 2027 has just begun.

The possible reasons why Cerny disclosed this now are many and varied. Maybe among the terms of its collaboration with AMD is for Sony to hype up the work the two companies are doing together (hugely positive for AMD’s stock price). Maybe Sony has inside knowledge of Microsoft’s plans for the next Xbox and feels that it would not be a bad idea to let consumers know the next PlayStation is coming too.

Conversely, maybe Sony feels that Microsoft – especially after the latest Xbox developments – does not pose any kind of threat in the console space anymore, so it’s now making plans for the PS6 in a different way than before (or maybe that was the case all along?). Maybe Sony’s plans do indeed include a PS6 home console and a PS6 handheld, something the company may want to talk about early on in order to give PlayStation fans reason to not invest in a PC handheld. Maybe some of the above, all of the above, none of the above? It’s hard to tell.

So what can “a few years’ time” actually mean for the PS6?

The other thing people interested in the future of the gaming market are already speculating about – now that the PlayStation6 is officially coming at some point – is Sony’s timeframe for releasing it. According to both sources who have leaked information about the PS6 so far – the Moore’s Law Is Dead YouTube channel and renown semiconductor insider Kepler_L2 – the company is currently targeting a November 2027 launch for at least one new PlayStation model, since it’s not clear to anyone outside Sony’s HQ whether the home console version and the rumored handheld version will come to market at the same time or not.

Mark Cerny claimed that this new graphics tech Sony has been working on with AMD will be used by a future PlayStation “in a few years’ time”, which would normally sound like it’s more than two. Cerny would obviously not want to reveal the company’s plans that early on – even if November 2027 is indeed in the cards for the next PS model(s) – so it might be wise to not read too much into his choice of words. The PS6 may be two years away or three years away and Sony may want to keep its options open, so Cerny himself may not be certain about the new system’s release timeframe anyway.

Here’s the thing, though: Sony could indeed opt for a November 2028 launch if the company means to extract as much profit as it possibly can from the PS5 customer base – and the PS4 customer base that’s still uncomfortably sizeable – before the PS6 arrives. This console generation has been a highly unusual one from the get go and, truth be told, it was during the last 18 months or so that the PS5 really got into its stride. Since Sony’s current system dominated sales this time around – and Microsoft seems to be moving in a different direction with the next Xbox – there’s even less reason for the company to go for the 7-year cycle of the PS4 or the PS5 with the PS6.

It’s true that – given the current circumstances – the smart money would normally be in the PlayStation6 being released in 2028, not 2027, for a number of different reasons ranging from availability of developer tools and flagship launch games to cost of manufacturing processes and political climate.

But the dual-device scenario changes things considerably for both Sony and the PlayStation crowd. The way both systems could be marketed would define price points and product availability, while a lot depends on whether AMD will be able to complete the work needed for the final hardware of both systems to be ready by then. Long story short: at this point basically nobody – not even Sony or AMD – can be certain about the PS6 launch date. Let’s just enjoy the ride, then, shall we?