PS6 Release Date Leaked: Could It Arrive Sooner Than Expected?

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Summary

  • The PS6 SoC is reportedly targeting a late 2025 tapeout.
  • Sony has historically entered the SoC tapeout phase around two years ahead of commercializing whatever console was meant to incorporate the target chip.
  • This claim hence suggests that the PS6 may be released as early as late 2027.

As a gaming enthusiast, I’m excitedly speculating that we might get our hands on the PlayStation 6 as early as late 2027, according to a trusted industry source. This timeline seems consistent with Sony’s earlier hints about the lifespan of this console generation.

In a consolidated financial report released in February 2024, Sony’s President and Chief Financial Officer, Hiroki Totoki, stated that by 2020, the PlayStation 5 had reached its mid-life. This suggests that Sony is planning to launch the PlayStation 6 as soon as 2028 at the latest, a timeline that was also echoed by Sony’s Senior Vice President, Naomi Matsuoka.

It’s been suggested by NeoGAF user Kepler_L2, who has accurately leaked PS5 Pro details and other hardware insights in the past, that Sony might be releasing the PS6 earlier than expected. On January 17, Kepler_L2 claimed that the design of the PS6 is finalized and it’s currently undergoing preliminary validation testing. This suggests that Sony is in the process of testing the console’s system-on-chip digitally to make sure everything functions correctly before creating the first physical prototypes. The initial version of the PS6’s System on Chip is reportedly codenamed A0, with production expected to start late in 2025. Historically, Sony typically enters the phase of manufacturing test chips (tapeout) around two years before mass-producing consoles containing this type of silicon.

PS6 SoC’s Process Node Is Still an Unknown

If history follows a similar pattern as before, the PlayStation 6 (PS6) might make its debut towards the end of 2027. This would mean that the PS5’s lifespan could mirror that of the PS4, which was released seven years prior to its successor. The manufacturing process for the next-generation console’s chip is yet to be determined. Currently, the PlayStation 5 (PS5) and its Pro variant use TSMC’s N7 node family, with the 7nm and 6nm manufacturing processes respectively. It’s been speculated that the PS6 will be built on AMD’s UDNA architecture, which is expected to succeed RDNA4 (formerly known as RDNA5). This new architecture is rumored to introduce a 3nm die shrink. However, it’s undecided whether the 3nm node will be the only manufacturing process in this family.

The design phase for Product Model 6 has been completed, and it’s currently undergoing pre-silicon validation. We plan to release the first silicon version of the product towards the end of this year (A0 tapeout).

PS6 Might Beat Next-Gen Xbox Console to the Market

Based on rumors of a potential 2027 release for the PlayStation 6 (PS6), it seems that Sony’s next gaming console might hit the market before any successor to the Xbox Series X/S. However, documents from Microsoft’s legal battle with the FTC over the Activision Blizzard acquisition in 2023 hint at a 2028 release for their upcoming console (as of 2022, when the leaked documents were obtained). If the development of the A0 SoC advances to the physical prototype phase by late 2025, we might start hearing more about the PS6’s hardware as early as 2026.

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2025-01-18 20:33