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Nostrodrunkus prediction #2: PS6 Handheld will launch in 2027

Shogmaster

Shogmaster

Member
As everyone knows by now, PS6 is rumored to be delayed from 2027 to 2028. I have already predicted that XBox Magnus will launch in 2027 as planned, along with other Zen 6/RDNA 5 e g. Madusa Halo APUs. Now I will add one other Z6/R5 APU device to 2027 launch: Playstation 6 Handheld.

Some relative points:

- Sony has been demanding a "Low Power" version of PS5 software from devs for about a year now. Its already part of the SDK. The target is 15W, which happens to be PSHH total TBP.

- PS6HH's Canis is far less complex monolithic APU than PS6's Orion. Acceptable yields should be easier to reach, in time for 2027 launch.

- Launching both PS6 and PS6HH in the same year was always a daunting challenge. By delaying PS6 launch, PS6HH would be given more proper launch efforts.

- Sony wants to tackle Switch 2 before it gets insurmountable marketshare.

- Yer mama's fat.

Personally, PS6 Hsndheld seems like a poor code name, as it's more of a PS5 handheld. Porting down PS6 software to it will get really ugly: with over 3.3x CUs @ 2x clockspeed, 2X CPU cores, and lordy know how much more RAM, porting PS6 spftware down will make Series X to S software problems look like a scooter ride through the park.

So waiting to launch this handheld seems problematic for its success. It needs to tackle Switch 2 ASAP. Thus, launching in 2027.

Nostrodrunkus has spoken.
 
Iron Man Eye Roll GIF
 
I wonder if it'll even be branded as a part of the ps6 family.
My gut says they'll call it PSP2. That way there's wiggle room for certain games that may not be compatible
 
Given the current climate everything is a little bit uneasy but I would take the handheld first probably and then look at the proper full powered console
 
Shogmaster said:
- Launching both PS6 and PS6HH in the same year was always a daunting challenge. By delaying PS6 launch, PS6HH would be given more proper launch efforts.
Click to expand...

It's probably easier launching them together, since they can optimize the marketing budget, pitch them as co-devices and then use the launch as an opportunity to mandate developer support.

Shogmaster said:
- Sony wants to tackle Switch 2 before it gets insurmountable marketshare.
Click to expand...

Switch 2 Will probably already have an insurmountable marketshare by holiday 2027. And by then, it would be receiving a flood of third party AAA support.

What Sony will be wary about would be a Steamdeck 2 or PC handhelds with the Medusa Halo APU. Those will run a lot of Sony first party games (from Steam), be every bit as powerful or more so than the PS6 portable, and will have the advantage of openness. And that's why they have to get it out soon
 
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Ozriel said:
It's probably easier launching them together, since they can optimize the marketing budget, pitch them as co-devices and then use the launch as an opportunity to mandate developer support.



Switch 2 Will probably already have an insurmountable marketshare by holiday 2027. And by then, it would be receiving a flood of third party AAA support.

What Sony will be wary about would be a Steamdeck 2 or PC handhelds with the Medusa Halo APU. Those will run a lot of Sony first party games (from Steam), be every bit as powerful or more so than the PS6 portable, and will have the advantage of openness. And that's why they have to get it out soon
Click to expand...
SteamDeck 2 will certainly not use something like Madusa Halo Mini, if they intend to hit similar price point as first one. Madusa Halo Mini will be used by PC handheld makers such as Asus, Lenovo etc for $800+ devices.

Basically, Sony and AMD nailed what Valve dreams SteamDeck 2 to be: a 15W TDP handheld with enough AI upscaling muscle to run most PC games in scale.

To be honest, I dont think there will be a SteamDeck 2. I think Valve will concentrate on providing Steam OS to all the handheld PCs.
 
Ozriel said:
Switch 2 Will probably already have an insurmountable marketshare by holiday 2027. And by then, it would be receiving a flood of third party AAA support.
Click to expand...
Switch2 is continuation of switch which in turn continuation os *DS
No matter the point at which console launches it'll have to penetrate market from scratch against established market leader
Although Switch and PS Portable will be in slightly different markets by playerbase, reason why PSP was successful despite going against NDS

Ozriel said:
What Sony will be wary about would be a Steamdeck 2 or PC handhelds with the Medusa Halo APU. Those will run a lot of Sony first party games (from Steam), be every bit as powerful or more so than the PS6 portable, and will have the advantage of openness. And that's why they have to get it out soon
Click to expand...
Vita sold roughly twice than all PC handhelds combined
It's too small and too niche market to threaten anyone
 
Shogmaster said:
SteamDeck 2 will certainly not use something like Madusa Halo Mini, if they intend to hit similar price point as first one. Madusa Halo Mini will be used by PC handheld makers such as Asus, Lenovo etc for $800+ devices.

Basically, Sony and AMD nailed what Valve dreams SteamDeck 2 to be: a 15W TDP handheld with enough AI upscaling muscle to run most PC games in scale.

To be honest, I dont think there will be a SteamDeck 2. I think Valve will concentrate on providing Steam OS to all the handheld PCs.
Click to expand...

Valve has already said they're making a Steam deck 2, and there's no way it'll launch at the price point of the original.

The key enabler for the PS6 handheld is pretty much the same chipset family Valve will be using.
 
No its more a ps6 handheld.

Moore's law said it will probably play ps6 games better than ps5 games. And they are targeting fps over resolution.

No need to separate them in release. They will all count as PS6 sales
 
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Felessan said:
Vita sold roughly twice than all PC handhelds combined
It's too small and too niche market to threaten anyone
Click to expand...

The market will continue to grow, and PC handhelds will continue to improve. Vita exclusives also existed. Something that won't be the case if Sony continues to bring their games to PC.

I'd expect a PlayStation branded handheld to outsell anything from Valve, but to say there'd be no competition and sales attenuation from Deck 2…that's just wrong.
 
Nintendo will wipe the floor with it. Beats me why Sony are bothering, most PS5 owners don't even know what the Portal is, same for this thing if it ever sees the light of day.
 
Ozriel said:
The market will continue to grow, and PC handhelds will continue to improve. Vita exclusives also existed. Something that won't be the case if Sony continues to bring their games to PC.
Click to expand...
They are still timed exclusives
Fomo is a thing and 1year lockdown is a lot
Exclusives loses roughly 80% of their exclusivity impact after 12m, so for Sony there is not much harm in porting them afterwards (and that's why 3rd party also usually locked for 1 year and not longer)
Porting doesn't have major negative impact on Sony on PC, which is a market of comparable size to consoles, it'll be completely unimportant in battle of handheld, where PC handhelds are tiny fraction of console portable market.

Ozriel said:
I'd expect a PlayStation branded handheld to outsell anything from Valve, but to say there'd be no competition and sales attenuation from Deck 2…that's just wrong.
Click to expand...
It'll be marginal impact, immaterial in a grand scheme of things
 
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MrJangles said:
Nintendo will wipe the floor with it. Beats me why Sony are bothering, most PS5 owners don't even know what the Portal is, same for this thing if it ever sees the light of day.
Click to expand...
Just like NDS wiped out PSP
Sony and Nintendo are in slightly different markets - one is for young adult and one is for children. This is why though they do compete somewhat, they also coexist in a lot of areas

And Portal attachment rate steadily rises as awareness on it increase
 
Still personally think Sony won't even release a handheld if the AI hardware crisis massively inflates price. Which sucks because I'd be there day one if it happens.
 
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Ozriel said:
Valve has already said they're making a Steam deck 2, and there's no way it'll launch at the price point of the original.

The key enabler for the PS6 handheld is pretty much the same chipset family Valve will be using.
Click to expand...
Canis is entirely custom design owned by Sony. They won't sharing that SoC with Valve, and AMD is only doing chiplets for RDNA 5. Lowest CU count is 24 with AT4, which is 8 more than 16 in Canis.

Zen 6 APUs with less than 24 CU are rumored to still use RDNA 3.5, like Z2 Extreme that just got trounced by Intel's Panther Lake X9 388H APU with B390. Intel will be releasing their own handheld gaming APU with B370 graphics (slightly cut down version of B390) later this year.

I could see Valve going with Panther Lake before getting something custom with RDNA 5 from AMD.
 
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I still don`t get the point of a PS6 handheld if it is really named that way.
A handheld playing PS5 games would already have to be a rather expensive little powerhouse of a handheld and ofc the PS6 branding would make no sense in that case.
A handheld playing all PS6 games would have to be either absurdly bulky and expensive, like a real gamer-laptop or the PS6 would have to be much closer to the PS5 in hardware power than anyone could want, that would be a lose-lose for everyone.
And everything in between as in "it plays ps5 games and some ps6 games" would make it confusing for the average customer.
 
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Felessan said:
Just like NDS wiped out PSP
Sony and Nintendo are in slightly different markets - one is for young adult and one is for children. This is why though they do compete somewhat, they also coexist in a lot of areas

And Portal attachment rate steadily rises as awareness on it increase
Click to expand...
resize


🤔
 
Spyxos said:
That ps6 is coming in 2027. The hardware industry is on fire. They'll be lucky if they can support the PS5. Launching the PS6 in this market situation would be self-destruction.
Click to expand...
They can eat some of the cost and pass some to consumers and later so a price drop
Given that they unlikely to change chip design as it's on final stages it make little sense to delay launch. Launch as is even if it might be a little expensive and "relaunch" it later when situation normalize. Just holding back hardware until it becomes more affordable achieve nothing as hardware will just get outdated with no benefit
 
Kokoloko85 said:
Yeah sony has gone through RnD but will cancel it because people think so..
The delay wont be longer than a year
Click to expand...
How dare you imply that years of R&D are more important than a clueless GAF poster?

Seriously people are really clueless here. Sony has a trusted team of HW developers. They work for years on the next system and then need to be working on refinements and other HW projects including the next, next system. There are agreements with subcontractors and partners like AMD to design the chips, with manufacturers to fab the chips and assemble the final hardware. There is changing demand for the existing product. So many pieces are involved beyond the cost of components. Introducing a delay will have costs in all areas.

There is one reason I could see a short delay happening. This is not due to costs, but strategy and borrowing from Nintendo. It's risky but Sony could decide to ramp up production, stockpile a fair amount of inventory and to hit the ground running with enough PS6's available at and near launch to meet demand. This would only really involve a delay in the sale of the first units or maybe a minor delay in some channels. I doubt they will do this though because they have had repeated success launching in November with limited stock and having demand > supply driving some hype.
 
MrJangles said:
Nintendo will wipe the floor with it. Beats me why Sony are bothering, most PS5 owners don't even know what the Portal is, same for this thing if it ever sees the light of day.
Click to expand...
The fuck is it this cheerleading post? Most ps5 owners wut? Have you drunk too much beer in your nintendo branded cup?
 
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bitbydeath said:
Nah, things won't change anytime soon so there'd be no point in a delay.
Click to expand...
Felessan said:
They can eat some of the cost and pass some to consumers and later so a price drop
Given that they unlikely to change chip design as it's on final stages it make little sense to delay launch. Launch as is even if it might be a little expensive and "relaunch" it later when situation normalize. Just holding back hardware until it becomes more affordable achieve nothing as hardware will just get outdated with no benefit
Click to expand...
I don't think the design will change either. But costs have risen too much in the meantime, and not just for RAM. There is no other option but a significantly later release.
 
Guys, two things can be true: the PS5 handheld will be very successful but also not make a dent in Nintendo's market. We've been through this scenario twice already.

BUT let's be happy we are about to have two amazing handhelds on the market together that complement each other very well.

Vita and 3DS was a GOAT combination.
 
CentralScrutinizer said:
Guys, two things can be true: the PS5 handheld will be very successful but also not make a dent in Nintendo's market. We've been through this scenario twice already.

BUT let's be happy we are about to have two amazing handhelds on the market together that complement each other very well.

Vita and 3DS was a GOAT combination.
Click to expand...
How dare you bring unity to this discussion!
 
Shogmaster said:
How dare you bring unity to this discussion!
Click to expand...
I know neogaf has its biases BUT it's possible to enjoy BOTH PlayStation and Nintendo hardware and games. I've been doing it since the 90s.

This ain't some gang war shit where you have to murder the other side to be accepted... well... on neogaf it is apparently.

Spyxos said:
Who would buy it if it's 3-4 times more expensive?
Click to expand...
Very few people I'd imagine. My personal limit for a PS Handheld is $600 and even then it has to honor and play all of my digital PS4 and the "eligible" PS5 games.
 
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CentralScrutinizer said:
I know neogaf has its biases BUT it's possible to enjoy BOTH PlayStation and Nintendo hardware and games. I've been doing it since the 90s.

This ain't some gang war shit where you have to murder the other side to be accepted... well... on neogaf it is apparently.


Very few people I'd imagine. My personal limit for a PS Handheld is $600 and even then it has to honor and play all of my digital PS4 and the "eligible" PS5 games.
Click to expand...
I reoresent the Crips. Dodger blue bitches!

As for the handheld, Sony is aiming for Switch 2's price neighborhood is the rumor. And it certainly will play PS4 and PS5 libraries.
 
HRK69 said:
Source?
Click to expand...
Wheres your source that it will be delayed? Because none of them are credible

Moore's law said, they might decide delaying it to early 2028. Nothing more has been decided.




Unless there is a global event like a covid, or things get worse with Ram, there is no reason for a 2-3 year delay like some people want.

Also funny no1 is asking for Xbox's next rumour console to be delayed, even though they can barely sell consoles now days
 
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KungFucius said:
How dare you imply that years of R&D are more important than a clueless GAF poster?

Seriously people are really clueless here. Sony has a trusted team of HW developers. They work for years on the next system and then need to be working on refinements and other HW projects including the next, next system. There are agreements with subcontractors and partners like AMD to design the chips, with manufacturers to fab the chips and assemble the final hardware. There is changing demand for the existing product. So many pieces are involved beyond the cost of components. Introducing a delay will have costs in all areas.

There is one reason I could see a short delay happening. This is not due to costs, but strategy and borrowing from Nintendo. It's risky but Sony could decide to ramp up production, stockpile a fair amount of inventory and to hit the ground running with enough PS6's available at and near launch to meet demand. This would only really involve a delay in the sale of the first units or maybe a minor delay in some channels. I doubt they will do this though because they have had repeated success launching in November with limited stock and having demand > supply driving some hype.
Click to expand...

Alot of posters can be a weird bunch, and think they know what they are talking about.

Probably the same losers who thought they should cancel GTA6 and Wolverine because the test footage looks "so bad". Its called game in development, while development, games dont look like when they do launched, but some people dont even understand that.

Yeah a short delay can happen, but people asking and demanding it to be released in 2029 and 2030 because they think its for the best as delusional. Unless there is a giant global event like a covid again, or Ram prices are even weord, Im not expecting more than a year delay. But the world can go into shit pretty quick lol
 
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Spyxos said:
I don't think the design will change either. But costs have risen too much in the meantime, and not just for RAM. There is no other option but a significantly later release.
Click to expand...
They could eat a lot of the costs. I expect this will be still cheaper than the PS5 Pro.

Also, costs aren't coming down any decade soon. A delay wouldn't help anything price wise, ability to obtain stock will be more of an issue for anyone.
 
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Spyxos said:
Who would buy it if it's 3-4 times more expensive?
Click to expand...
It will not be 3-4 times more expensive
Impact from memory/nand would be 200$ max, or at expected price 33% increase
Enthusiasts will buy it anyway, especially given that alternatives will be more/much more expensive as well - "high tide lifts all boat" (and no, cloud will not save anybody as it'll be proportionally more expensive as well, even more so as datacenter infrastructure will have price competition as well)

Sony can eat 100$ and pass to customers 100$, leading to some decrease in profit and some loss of sales due to elasticity, but not significant one, and they'll recouperate it once component prices drop
 
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