A series of new leaks suggest that there will be two versions of the PlayStation 6 but that the portable model will run PS5 games at a disadvantage.
The idea of generations of console started to fall apart with the Nintendo Switch, as it arrived just five years after the unsuccessful Wii U and managed to dominate sales of both the PlayStation 4 and 5.
There’s no guarantee the Switch 2 will do as well but many are describing it as the start of a new generation, that will eventually include a new Xbox (which Microsoft has already announced) and the PlayStation 6 (which Sony has only vaguely hinted at).
Both new consoles are rumoured to have handheld forms, but it’s uncertain whether they’ll also have traditional under-your-TV models as well. However, Xbox seems to be hinting that they’ll have both and new rumours for the PlayStation 6 also indicate that there will also be a home and portable device.
Is there going to be a new PlayStation portable?
There have been leaks about a portable PlayStation 6 before and now new details have emerged that address the question of whether a portable console could be as or more powerful than the current PlayStation 5.
Generally, that’s not thought to be possible, as there are inherent physical limitations for a portable, given the amount of heat it would generate (most of the PlayStation 5’s giant size is because of the huge fans it uses), the size of the motherboard, and the limited battery life that would result.
That’s why the Nintendo Switch 2 is more comparable to the PlayStation 4 than 5, although it’s thought that it will be possible to run cut-down versions of current gen games, just as titles like Doom Eternal and The Witcher 3 run on the current Switch.
If these new rumours are accurate though that’s not enough for Sony, with rumours suggesting that the portable PlayStation 6 will use two SoCs (system on a chip) and AMD’s UDNA architecture for the GPU (graphics processing unit); while the CPU (central processing unit) will use ZEN5 or ZEN6 AMD technology.
The English translation of all that technobabble is that it will be very powerful, although of course that gets into the other inherent limitation of a portable console: price.
What’s described sounds significantly more expensive than the £395.99 Switch 2, although exactly how much is not part of the rumours.
It’s still unlikely a practical portable device could be as powerful as the PlayStation 5 and leaker Kepler has indicated that it is not, stating on the forum NeoGAF that it uses a 15W SoC on 3nm processors – which would limit its overall abilities.
Kepler later clarified that the PlayStation 6 can run PlayStation 5 games but not at the same resolution or frame rate, ‘mainly due to lower memory bandwidth.’
He compared the power to somewhere between an Xbox Series S and a standard PlayStation 5 and there’s a lot more technobabble in the original thread, as Kepler answers questions from various fans.
There is, of course, no guarantee that any of this is true but Kepler does seem to know what they’re talking about and was correct about the PS5 Pro when they had similar leaked information about that.
According to them the PlayStation 6 is ‘design complete’ and in ‘pre-Si validation’ (the processing of checking a design before physical chips are manufactured). According to them, ‘A0 tapeout’ is scheduled for later in the year, which is when the first iteration of a functioning chip is manufactured.
When will the PS6 be released?
Kepler then speculates, based on the process for the PlayStation 5, that this would lead to first party developers getting devkits (the modified consoles needed to make games) in the first half of 2026, with third parties getting them in the first half of 2027, and a launch in the second half of 2027.
There has been much speculation already that the next gen Xbox and PlayStation consoles will be released by 2028, but it’s unclear from these rumours whether the portable PlayStation 6 would be released at the same time as the home console.
Kepler mentions the SoC being ‘taped out’ a few months after the ‘regular PS6 SoC’ but it’s ambiguous as to whether that means the actual device will also arrive a few months after the home model.
It’s also unclear how exactly Sony will market it. It wouldn’t make sense to call the portable a PlayStation 6 if it can only run PlayStation 5 games, and even then not at full capacity. That may lead Sony to call it something more ambiguous, like the earlier PS Vita or the more recent PlayStation Portal.
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