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.
