Sony not going to talk about PS6 for "years", more focused on games and software right now - Mark Cerny

2028 sounds right. Any earlier is a joke
Yup, sony needs dat 3nm process node to be mature/cheap enough for console production and amd to work bit more on ai upscaling/rt capabilities of their gpu's, by holidays 2028 launch(so roughly year earlier in terms of prototypes) both of those will definitely be met.
 
I'm loving Death Stranding 2 so far! It would be great for them to talk about actual software that people want for years, now that they've wasted so much time of PS5's lifecycle on GAAS and live service garbage.
dude, it's SO GOOD. hadn't given DS1 the time it deserved until last week. got about 60% through story and jumped into DS2. it's amazing. and the graphics are just CHERRRRRY.
 
By 2028, MS will already have failed with their attempt at capturing console audiences with their totally-not-a-Windows-PC-box for the living room which also has some games (the ones that didn't get cancelled). Nintendo will launch their first Switch 2 with a display that's not complete dogshit for just 700 USD. At this point Sony can set a price for their console without any real, direct competition. Also, all digital. PS Plus price increase. And still no Bloodborne 2. Enjoy guys
 
By 2028, MS will already have failed with their attempt at capturing console audiences with their totally-not-a-Windows-PC-box for the living room which also has some games (the ones that didn't get cancelled). Nintendo will launch their first Switch 2 with a display that's not complete dogshit for just 700 USD. At this point Sony can set a price for their console without any real, direct competition. Also, all digital. PS Plus price increase. And still no Bloodborne 2. Enjoy guys
The hilarity of the exaggerated hyperbolic doomsaying in this post would be the funniest thing I saw today were it not for the gallows humour of how Microsoft has fucked up their studios with another round of layoffs this morning.
 
Holiday 2029 into 2030 is still my bet.

This will be a decade-long generation, and that decade started when Covid lockdowns finally slowed down, not when the PS5 actually released.
 
It makes so much sense.

This gen has been slow as hell. Most of the key hardware tech features are barely just starting to be explored in shipping games.

Gaming graphics are well past the point of diminishing returns now, it's not even funny. Dev budgets are now the most limiting factor in game graphics and potential new gameplay scope (without any transformative technology this won't change---AI will be it, but on the dev use side it's still in its infancy as well as receiving significant pushback by artists and voice talent).

Also, on the semi-conductor manufactoring side, Moore's Law is long dead. Meaningful performance improvements at a reasonable cost and power consumption is no longer in reach and wafer costs keep going up largely due to the virtual monopoly TSMC holds. Successor technologies like graphene transistors, optical computing or just more exotic materials like Gallium Nitride using existing lithography tech just haven't managed to break out of academia and into commercial manufacturing yet at all.

We should probably stay with PS5 for another decade. But in all likelihood, we'll get a PS6 in 5 yrs time that will not be a big upgrade, but will be interesting enough in terms of microarchitectural improvements that it can provide really cool gameplay and game design opportunities; but those in turn will still need another half-decade to ship in real games.
 
but will be interesting enough in terms of microarchitectural improvements that it can provide really cool gameplay and game design opportunities
which developers will gladly ignore in favor of pushing out more of the same high selling slop gameplay that has been prevalent since late PS3... Even Nintendo can't commit to their own console gimmicks
 
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We're five years into the generation and Sony's output still is fucking laughable.

No major first party release aside from a remake, GT and Astrobot.

They want to focus on games published by someone else and keep making mad bank from the scam PS+ is and hardware sales.

All this from the perspective of a multiplat user, of course. If you only have a single system, even Xbox is killing it with games (and GP is miles better).
 
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Sony isnt expected to talk about the PS6 for years and focus on software


I know we have been hearing rumblings about a PS6 coming soon, but this may indicate they won't talk about it for another couple of years at the earliest, and are more focused on getting the games out. Hopefully this means a 2028 release at the earliest.
There are things that we are mislabeling as a PS6. The PS ecosystem will be getting new entry points, both on the console and handheld fronts, but a full-on PS6 is gonna be a little ways down the road
 
Assuming rumors are true the PS6 gen is spec-complete and will be built on AMD's ~2026 CPU/GPU roadmap (Zen6/RDNA5), so unless they scrap everything they have worked on up to now anything beyond Q4 2027/H1 2028 is going to be old technology-wise.

How exciting would a new Zen6/RDNA5 console using 4 year old tech shipping in Q4 2030 feel if AMD ships Zen8 and RDNA7 on desktop at the same time?
 
Could it be about other PS5 updates?
Partially this, yeah. As easy as it can be to criticize Sony's ridiculous GaaS play (totally warranted to mock them on this btw), at least they are internally turning the ship around on that front by letting execs/managers in SIE Japan take over again.

On the HW side, Sony is actually an astute HW manufacturer. They wouldn't have made it this far if they weren't, but the problem they are facing isn't 'is it too soon for a PS6?' and more 'How do we re-establish the value proposition of consoles when faced with ballooning price tags and longer product lifecycles, both for consumers and for developers'. They are very interesting problems to tackle, and I agree with what Cerny is saying here fundamentally: rushing a HW launch due purely out of historical precedent would be foolish at this juncture.
 

Sony not going to talk about PS6 for "years", more focused on games and software right now - Mark Cerny


Barack Obama Applause GIF by Obama
 
Hopefully this means PS6 by 2028 at least. Give it time to reach good enough hardware power to push neural rendering and pathtracing for next gen games.
My only "worry" is that by that time we may very well be in a world where anyone can prompt their way into a fully interactive world based on current Gen AI progress. That would be wild and i think its coming. The jury is out if these types of experiences could coexist with traditional gaming, i think they will.
 
Why would they?

Xbox is an absolute cluster fuck so Sony can just coast this generation and extend it for as long as they please
 
It makes so much sense.

This gen has been slow as hell. Most of the key hardware tech features are barely just starting to be explored in shipping games.

Gaming graphics are well past the point of diminishing returns now, it's not even funny. Dev budgets are now the most limiting factor in game graphics and potential new gameplay scope (without any transformative technology this won't change---AI will be it, but on the dev use side it's still in its infancy as well as receiving significant pushback by artists and voice talent).

Also, on the semi-conductor manufactoring side, Moore's Law is long dead. Meaningful performance improvements at a reasonable cost and power consumption is no longer in reach and wafer costs keep going up largely due to the virtual monopoly TSMC holds. Successor technologies like graphene transistors, optical computing or just more exotic materials like Gallium Nitride using existing lithography tech just haven't managed to break out of academia and into commercial manufacturing yet at all.

We should probably stay with PS5 for another decade. But in all likelihood, we'll get a PS6 in 5 yrs time that will not be a big upgrade, but will be interesting enough in terms of microarchitectural improvements that it can provide really cool gameplay and game design opportunities; but those in turn will still need another half-decade to ship in real games.

Not even just Moore's Law, because that's been long dead. Dennard's Scaling has just about reached its end too because, while we've been getting to 2nm and 1nm in some places, things like SRAM sizes, memory controllers etc. stopped scaling down linearly a long time ago. There's only so much more transistor budget we've been seeing with each node shrink on these sub-10 nm processes.

That's why things like multi-chip stacking, PNM, PIM, chiplets etc. (or a combination thereof) are going to be the big areas for large performance increases going forward. And I suppose, if it ever happens, mass scale graphene manufacturing. Quantum computing is a future possibility but easily decades off for any commercial-grade consumer-level products.

In that regard, the I/O subsystem in PS5 and some customizations made to the GPU (for cache scrubbers, for example) was a really smart bet and a key reason PS5's been punching above its weight in terms of what the paper specs would otherwise say, when compared to Series X. It just has significantly less bottlenecks across the whole system pipeline. It's a reason I have been hopeful PS6 would continue that further, maybe even with some PIM technology in some areas or at least more PNM, and another cache buffer somewhere along the pipeline.

I agree. The PS6 is going to be a very tough sell. Why upgrade your PS5/pro (which is already powerful enough for many people) for 2-3 years of cross-gen games? a 2x power increaes is just not enough to sell a likely overpriced console these days. I expect they'll wait as long as possible to announce something as "impressive" as they can to differentiate it.

They really should've kept PSVR going. The way they handled PSVR2 was quite bad, between no Gen 1 BC and lack of long-term software support in big titles.

I had hope (still hope) SIE would have worked on a scaled-down version that could be slimmer, wireless, and offer "good enough" performance at a cheap $149 or so price point, to pack that type of headset as default in a new console. It's the only way VR can see true mass-market growth with serious game dev support behind it.

that might change if microsoft releases a new xbox console and gets a headstart

Nothing MS is doing or will do in the next 3-5 years, will have any substantive impact on PlayStation or Nintendo's market share. Honestly, they need to concentrate on trying to get ahead of Valve, who are likely (hopefully) building out Steam Deck 2 and new Steam Machine platform as we speak.

In fact, if Valve do commit to a new generation of Steam Deck/Machine product line, covered the low/medium/high price brackets well, get a couple solid OEMs on board and manufacture at scale...

Honestly, they would have a better shot as a 3rd competitor to PlayStation & Nintendo, than Microsoft has had for the past several years. Steam doesn't have any of Xbox's baggage.

Probably the right call. I think demand for a PS6 would be at historic lows if they rushed it. They barely have their PS5 games ready, let alone PS6 games.

SIE have had PS5 games pretty much every year this gen, even if some were cross-gen. They just did Death Stranding 2 with KojiPro and Yotei is coming in Fall. Saros is next year alongside Marvel Tokon w/ Arc System Works, and Intergalatic the year after.

Plus they're still supporting Astro Bot, Helldivers 2, GT7 plus other games. Yeah the GAAS cancellations were bad and have sidelined a few of the studios from having more games to go this gen, but that's not the entirety of what SIE has been.
 

Sony not going to talk about PS6 for "years", more focused on games and software right now - Mark Cerny


Barack Obama Applause GIF by Obama
its july 2025, bro, if sony launches ps6 in holidays 2028 they will reveal it in 2,5 years so early 2028 and by may-july 2028 so few months before launch(aka still 3 years from now on) we will have official specs/price and launch date already ;D
 
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Sony isnt expected to talk about the PS6 for years and focus on software


I know we have been hearing rumblings about a PS6 coming soon, but this may indicate they won't talk about it for another couple of years at the earliest, and are more focused on getting the games out. Hopefully this means a 2028 release at the earliest.
Pretty likely means PS6 will be announced and released in 2027.

There was a 7 years of difference between PS3 and PS4, and also between PS4 and PS5. It did work very well for them, so pretty likely will repeat it for PS6.
 
2020 was 5 years ago.

I'm team 2028 for PS6 but saying this gen has just begun is something.

Every single generation someone says that and its most likely because they are cheap and don't like the idea that something more powerful will release soon. They did the same thing when PS5 was announced. "But if feels like PS4 generation just started..."
 
that might change if microsoft releases a new xbox console and gets a headstart
No, another Asus Rog Xbox Ally (this time shaped as home console) won't change anything.

Sony will continue increasing their market share, even if MS makes their own proper next gen console.
 
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There are things that we are mislabeling as a PS6. The PS ecosystem will be getting new entry points, both on the console and handheld fronts, but a full-on PS6 is gonna be a little ways down the road
Partially this, yeah. As easy as it can be to criticize Sony's ridiculous GaaS play (totally warranted to mock them on this btw), at least they are internally turning the ship around on that front by letting execs/managers in SIE Japan take over again.

On the HW side, Sony is actually an astute HW manufacturer. They wouldn't have made it this far if they weren't, but the problem they are facing isn't 'is it too soon for a PS6?' and more 'How do we re-establish the value proposition of consoles when faced with ballooning price tags and longer product lifecycles, both for consumers and for developers'. They are very interesting problems to tackle, and I agree with what Cerny is saying here fundamentally: rushing a HW launch due purely out of historical precedent would be foolish at this juncture.
Are you able to talk more about this?
I'm especially curious about the SIEJ part, especially as Hideaki Nishino, if we don't count Tsuyoshi Kodera as he held the CEO role for way too little, seems to be the first true SCEI alumni at the helm ever since... Ken Kutaragi in 2007 (and sorry Kazuo Hirai fans, the guy was straight up a SCEA plant). Does that mean anything for PlayStation Studios management of Hermen Hulst, Scott Rohde and John Rostron (plus other people)? Not that I really have anything against their management, just a little curious here.
 
Good to hear they are focussing on games instead of a new gen, because at this point there is not a single PlayStation game I want to play, now or in the future. All that is great with the PlayStation is in the past.

  • A bunch of new game IP; not moneyhatted stuff, but internally developed
  • Day 1 first party games on PS+
  • Free cloud saves; no more paying for saves through PS+
  • Something akin to Smart Delivery, or rather update their whole backend so that there is no confusion over what version of a game you have and all of the confusion that comes with that
If they get to this point, I might consider buying a PlayStation (6) again. Or a portable. But they have a LOT of hard work to do ahead of them to get to that point.
 
I'm very curious about what Cory Barlog is cooking and if it's doing well. It's been seven years since God of War 2018. He wasn't the director of the sequel. Clearly his main focus is the rumored sci-fi game.
 
Sounds like Xbox wants to rush the gen and Sony wants to slow roll it. I think I'm good with the slow roll.

Imagine wanting to rush a new console generation during a time of platform lock-in, minimal marginal gen-over-gen performance gains, and surging inflation. It's a terrible decision because the only play Microsoft has due to how big a hit the Xbox brand has taken.
 
2028 makes sense and gives time for 3nm node shrink to get cheaper and for new UDNA architecture to get more stable.
 
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Does that mean anything for PlayStation Studios management of Hermen Hulst, Scott Rohde and John Rostron (plus other people)? Not that I really have anything against their management, just a little curious here.
Sure - I wouldn't say that they were usurped, nor would I qualify it as a 'demotion', but there is absolutely more oversight of the portfolio and its direction that is coming down from the Japan side than there was before.

Its not that the GaaS initiative is dead - you're always gonna see Sony take swings at MP titles. They always have, to mixed results ofc, but its not like its some brand new initiative for them either. However, and this is something Sony noted in recent reports both with regards to Bungie and as something noted when accounting for missed revenue targets on the first party front, but they need to get better about shipping games. Part of the GaaS push was giving some teams a lot of leeway to chase after some questionable projects, and part of the increased oversight is getting those projects or teams, most of whom were GaaS projects, but thats just what they heavily invested in for a number of years, so it makes sense.

There is just an undeniable phenomenon that the Western games industry, going beyond just Microsoft here, but the overall Western gaming industry is going through some form of a crash right now. You can just see how companies like Bamco, Sega, and Capcom are doing, not to mention loads of new dev groups shipping new IP to tremendous success (things like Black Myth: Wukong, Stellar Blade, and even Astro Bot to an extent), and compare it to the struggles that Western leadership has had in similar time frames.

From what i've heard, it sounds like Sony began correcting the ship awhile ago, but its the sort of like looking at a star given how long project dev times have gotten - its only going make sense in retrospect. My expectation is that starting in 2026, each subsequent year should be far stronger from Sony publishing, if the course correction does work out. There'll be more output, at the very least, and that is honestly just what the industry needs to get back to overall - shipping games.

Shipping games is a organizational muscle - if you don't do it long enough, your organization is going to get worse at it with time. Its interesting to compare all this with a Capcom, who is just in this habit of making sure they are shipping 2-3 AAA titles per year, and a variety of smaller releases in the same period. Shipping games is a skill. You can't have a studio like ND go 7 years without shipping something. Thats the sort of issue they (newly structured Sony publishing leadership) are seeking to fix.
 
Sure - I wouldn't say that they were usurped, nor would I qualify it as a 'demotion', but there is absolutely more oversight of the portfolio and its direction that is coming down from the Japan side than there was before.

Its not that the GaaS initiative is dead - you're always gonna see Sony take swings at MP titles. They always have, to mixed results ofc, but its not like its some brand new initiative for them either. However, and this is something Sony noted in recent reports both with regards to Bungie and as something noted when accounting for missed revenue targets on the first party front, but they need to get better about shipping games. Part of the GaaS push was giving some teams a lot of leeway to chase after some questionable projects, and part of the increased oversight is getting those projects or teams, most of whom were GaaS projects, but thats just what they heavily invested in for a number of years, so it makes sense.

There is just an undeniable phenomenon that the Western games industry, going beyond just Microsoft here, but the overall Western gaming industry is going through some form of a crash right now. You can just see how companies like Bamco, Sega, and Capcom are doing, not to mention loads of new dev groups shipping new IP to tremendous success (things like Black Myth: Wukong, Stellar Blade, and even Astro Bot to an extent), and compare it to the struggles that Western leadership has had in similar time frames.

From what i've heard, it sounds like Sony began correcting the ship awhile ago, but its the sort of like looking at a star given how long project dev times have gotten - its only going make sense in retrospect. My expectation is that starting in 2026, each subsequent year should be far stronger from Sony publishing, if the course correction does work out. There'll be more output, at the very least, and that is honestly just what the industry needs to get back to overall - shipping games.

Shipping games is a organizational muscle - if you don't do it long enough, your organization is going to get worse at it with time. Its interesting to compare all this with a Capcom, who is just in this habit of making sure they are shipping 2-3 AAA titles per year, and a variety of smaller releases in the same period. Shipping games is a skill. You can't have a studio like ND go 7 years without shipping something. Thats the sort of issue they (newly structured Sony publishing leadership) are seeking to fix.
That was a great read, I appreciate your insight. Though I wonder how much can we separate the likes of Bandai Namco and Sega from the Western industry? To explain what I'm talking about, both companies have their own European publishing operations completely separated, and without any sort of real overseeing, from the main Japanese staff, as opposed to Sony that is more global on this aspect. It's less of a factor for Bandai Namco, but Sega of Europe was responsible for driving a large part of revenue from Sega's overall business.
I will have to, sadly, disagree on Capcom. There's no denying that they've been doing a lot of work on growing their big franchises to new heights, but their actual publishing skills have deteriorated once the PS5 era started, from the result of pivoting hard into big heavy hitters, while leaving aside for the most part smaller, AA productions and external collaborations. This can result on strong years like 2023 and 2026, but it can also lead to years of nothing like 2021, 2024, 2025, and most especially, 2022, probably their first year ever where they didn't publish any single new game. And this is without even getting on the actual state of stuff like Exoprimal, Dragon's Dogma 2 and Monster Hunter Wilds.

BTW, do you have anything to share about the PlayStation handheld? Your recent comments kinda suggested quite a different idea of what we all were expecting, on light of the comments of a very reliable AMD leaker (who leaked the PS5 Pro specs a year before launch), KeplerL2, who confirmed that it was sharing its hardware architecture with the PS6, and that both are planned to launch at the same time (something also said by HeisenbergFX4) in 2027.
Thanks in advance, cheers.
 
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Partially this, yeah. As easy as it can be to criticize Sony's ridiculous GaaS play (totally warranted to mock them on this btw), at least they are internally turning the ship around on that front by letting execs/managers in SIE Japan take over again.

On the HW side, Sony is actually an astute HW manufacturer. They wouldn't have made it this far if they weren't, but the problem they are facing isn't 'is it too soon for a PS6?' and more 'How do we re-establish the value proposition of consoles when faced with ballooning price tags and longer product lifecycles, both for consumers and for developers'. They are very interesting problems to tackle, and I agree with what Cerny is saying here fundamentally: rushing a HW launch due purely out of historical precedent would be foolish at this juncture.

People like Cerny would know that very well; he's been in the industry for a LONG time and worked at SEGA Technical Institute at one point.

People like him can still remember what rushing hardware out with no long-term plan or well-established value proposition did for SEGA, or what it's been doing for Xbox for this gen (and could happen again if the new devices don't clearly communicate the value they bring that current systems can't; accessing Steam games is simply not enough of a reason IMO).
 
A PS6 before holiday 2028 will be stillborn. The market isn't clamoring for it. We've yet to squeeze out everything we can from PS5 and XSX, and with the PS5 Pro entering only 8 months ago, the upper echelon of the console market just got a nice upgrade. The pandemic being in full swing as the current generation began has pushed the cross-gen period to ridiculous extension. There's just not any viable reason for a new generation of console hardware anytime soon.

Until I'm playing games that make my PS5 Pro cry uncle, a PS6 is not something I even want to think about.
 
So it's confirmed: the PS6 will feature a mid-range laptop PC APU with a small twist — an ultra-haptic controller and 4 TB of faster-than-life storage.
You can add a disc drive — no problem, if you can find a physical copy.
Cross-Gen "Intergalactic" is set as a launch title, with a new God of War on the horizon. Wolverine is also cross-gen.
The PS6 will work seamlessly with the PS6 Portable — a weaker version of the console.
 
So it's confirmed: the PS6 will feature a mid-range laptop PC APU with a small twist — an ultra-haptic controller and 4 TB of faster-than-life storage.
You can add a disc drive — no problem, if you can find a physical copy.
Cross-Gen "Intergalactic" is set as a launch title, with a new God of War on the horizon. Wolverine is also cross-gen.
The PS6 will work seamlessly with the PS6 Portable — a weaker version of the console.
In all honestly, this is probably closer to reality then we would all like to believe. What moves are left to be made in the gaming space? What new mechanics in a third person action game cannot be executed on current gen systems and will require a 12 core CPU paired with a 30TF GPU? The only thing left to be mined (outside of increased graphical fidelity) are system simulations and higher functioning game AI, but we have been predicting that for 3 generations now and if anything we have been going backwards in those aspects.
 
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