PS6 Release Date, Price and Feature Rumours

Wanna find out more about the PlayStation 6? Here’s everything we currently know about Sony’s next games console, including when it could arrive, what the PS6 might cost and whether your carefully organised collection of PS4 and PS5 games will still be usable.

Sony hasn’t officially announced a console called the PS6. It has, however, confirmed that it is investing in the next generation of the PlayStation platform and the content that will accompany it.

In other words, the next console probably exists somewhere between a corporate strategy document and a heavily guarded physical prototype, only accessible to haunted-looking scientists in a bunker 1000 feet below the earth’s surface.

Credible reporting, analyst forecasts and a considerably less credible assortment of internet leaks give us a vague idea of what could be coming. Here we’ve pulled together the rumours we think sound most feasible.

When will the PS6 come out?

Sony hasn’t announced when the PS6 will be coming out yet.

Ampere Analysis currently expects the next PlayStation console to arrive near the end of 2028. That is one of the most credible public forecasts available, but it’s still just an analyst’s prediction.

Sony has said that the launch timing will depend on technological progress, marketing considerations, regional conditions and pricing. It has also stressed that it will choose the timing based on its own plans rather than simply racing another console manufacturer to the shops (me-ow!).

Sony’s major consoles have traditionally launched shortly before Christmas, so late 2028, possibly November, is the strongest current prediction for a release date.

Judging by their previous release dates and market trends, we reckon the PS6 will be released on Friday 24th November 2028 in the UK (taking into account that the UK usually gets the console a week or two after North America).

But this is just a guess at the moment, so please don’t book annual leave or pitch a tent outside GAME just yet.

How much will the PS6 cost?

Nobody outside Sony appears to know.

Since April 2026, the recommended UK price of the standard PS5 has been £569.99. The PS5 Digital Edition costs £519.99, while the PS5 Pro sits at a tear-duct-twinging £789.99. This is several years after the original PS5 was released, so we’d expect the PS6 to retail above this price at launch.

Sony has also said that it does not intend to sell its hardware at significant losses and cannot absorb every increase in component costs, which sounds ominous to us.

Judging by what they’ve said, previous releases and current trends, we believe the PS6 price at launch could be:

• PS6: £599.99
• PS6 + optional disc drive: around £669.99
• Future PS6 Pro: probably £799.99 to £899.99

In budget-planning terms, you may wish to begin gently and apologetically explaining the situation to your partner and/or financial adviser, post-haste.

What will the PS6 look like?

Nobody has produced a credible photograph or render of the finished PS6 yet, but there are enough clues to make a semi-educated guess.

And our first prediction is good news: mercifully the first iteration of the PS6 probably won’t be the size of a fridge-freezer like the last generation.

Unverified hardware information shared by Moore's Law Is Dead suggests Sony is targeting a power draw of roughly 160W for its next console, with respected AMD hardware leaker KeplerL2 corroborating parts of the wider PS6 hardware picture.

That's important because the PS5's enormous dimensions weren't purely an artistic decision. Sony says its designers built the console around a large cooling fan and carefully shaped airflow channels to shift heat while keeping noise down.

There's another clue hidden inside the PS5 Pro. Sony says the three black "blades" running across the middle aren't merely decorative. They're additional airflow channels deliberately turned into part of the console's exterior design.

Put two and two together, and we'd predict a smaller, cleaner and more symmetrical PS6, potentially keeping the PS5 family's black-and-white colour scheme but losing some of those enormous sweeping side panels.

Sony rarely makes two PlayStation generations look exactly alike. The PS2's severe black tower gave way to the glossy curves of the PS3, which was followed by the thinner, angular PS4. Then came the enormous white-and-black PS5, which looks a bit like somebody commissioned George Lucas to design a broadband router.

So after arguably its most flamboyant console ever, the PS6 could swing back towards something more restrained.

We asked ChatGPT to gather our collective research and have a stab at showing us what the PS6 could look like (based on the rumours and our predictions) and it came back with some pretty cool potential designs:

It’s hard to tell what we’re going to end up with at this stage, but we think these images give a believable representation of what could be coming next.

Will the PS6 have a disc drive?

A major change to physical games has already been confirmed.

Sony will stop releasing newly launched PlayStation games on disc in January 2028 (booo!). Games released before that point will not be affected, so existing PS4 and PS5 discs will not suddenly self-destruct or anything. Backwards compatibility isn’t guaranteed either though.

Analysts expect the base PS6 to launch without a built-in disc drive. One possibility is that Sony could sell an optional drive for older games, following the approach used with newer PS5 models. However, Sony has not confirmed either of those plans.

For now, a primarily (or even exclusively) digital PS6 looks plausible, but we can’t be sure yet.

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When will the price reduce for the PS6?

There is no reliable way to predict this, but we do reckon the old patterns of predictable price reductions in the year or two after launch are long-gone.

The standard PS5 launched in the UK at £449.99 in November 2020. Its RRP increased to £479.99 in 2022 and then to £569.99 in 2026, while the Digital Edition also received a separate increase in 2025.

Temporary sales and game bundles are likely to appear at some stage after the PS6 launches, as they do with most consoles. However, there is no sound basis for predicting when Sony will introduce its first permanent reduction, or whether the price will fall at all during the console’s early years. Unfortunately, the times they are a-changin’.

What features will the PS6 have?

Each new PlayStation generation has traditionally brought a significant increase in computing power and graphical oomph (note to self: use the word oomph more).

Officially, Sony has confirmed very little about the hardware. The company has said it is investing in the next generation of PlayStation and wants the platform to provide a more seamless experience beyond the living room.

Sony is also working with AMD through Project Amethyst, a partnership focused on machine-learning technology for graphics and gameplay. Technology created through that collaboration has already contributed to an upgraded version of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, or PSSR, on the PS5 Pro.

This makes advanced machine-learning-led improvements to the PS6’s graphics a sensible expectation. AI could allow much sharper images and better graphical performance overall. Hopefully these breakthroughs don’t also then eventually lead to the somewhat inconvenient arrival of stony-faced, liquid-metal assassins from the future though.

What do the leaked specifications say?

The most detailed specifications currently circulating are (you guessed it) unverified.

The YouTube channel Moore’s Law Is Dead claims to have seen partial AMD presentation material describing a main console codenamed Orion. The purported specifications include eight Zen 6 CPU cores, RDNA 5 graphics, GDDR7 memory and roughly three times the traditional rasterisation performance of the standard PS5. Impressive!

However, the presentation allegedly dates from 2023, its authenticity has not been independently established and even if it has some credibility, any early design could change substantially before release (particularly since the information is already a few years old at the time of publication of this article).

Those specifications are therefore potentially useful as an indication of the components Sony may be exploring, but definitely not as a final PS6 parts list.

More consistent 4K performance, stronger ray tracing, faster frame rates and better image reconstruction are all on our wishlist. None of them has been formally promised, but it’d be a huge disappointment if we didn’t see Sony make progress that makes games noticeably prettier. We’re rooting for them!

Will PS4 and PS5 games work on PS6?

There are encouraging signs for PS5-game compatibility, but no official guarantee.

Reuters reported that AMD won the contract to design the chip for Sony’s next console after competing with Intel. Preserving compatibility with PS5 software was reportedly an important consideration because changing chip suppliers could have made that process more difficult and expensive.

That makes broad PS5 compatibility look likely, but Sony has not confirmed which games will work or whether some will require updates.

Support for PS4 games is less certain. A separate, unverified hardware leak refers to PS4 and PS5 backwards compatibility, but this has not been confirmed by Sony or independently authenticated (and we shouldn’t expect it, since Sony haven’t offered full two-generation backwards compatibility since some of the early versions of the PS3, which came out absolutely yonks ago).

There is another important distinction too. A game might be technically compatible with the PS6 while its original disc is unusable on a console without a disc drive. Access to older physical games could therefore depend on whether Sony provides a drive or compatible accessory.

Will there be a PS6 handheld?

Possibly, although the evidence is still limited.

Sony has officially said that the next generation should offer a more seamless PlayStation experience beyond the living room. That could involve portable hardware, cloud services, remote play or a mixture of several devices. It does not confirm a dedicated handheld console.

Unverified leaks claim Sony is developing a handheld codenamed Canis alongside the main console. The reported device would run games locally, support PS4 and PS5 software and provide USB-C video output for connecting it to a larger screen. Flexible!

Those details stem from the same wider group of leaked material as the Orion specifications and have not been confirmed independently.

A genuine portable PlayStation would certainly make sense in a world containing the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck and similar devices. At the moment, though, Canis remains a rumoured codename rather than something you should actively start clearing shelf space for.

Which games will be available at launch?

Historically, Sony try to launch at least one major first-party tentpole game each year, and it would be reasonable to expect an eye-catching PlayStation Studios release around the PS6 launch, but there’s currently no confirmed launch line-up.

Popular annual series will almost certainly continue onto the new hardware (like Call of Duty and FIFA), and some late-generation PS5 games will likely receive enhanced PS6 versions. Those are sensible expectations rather than announcements.

A PS6 version of Grand Theft Auto VI has not been confirmed, but Rockstar eventually releasing an improved version of an enormously successful game on a next-gen console wouldn’t exactly be an M. Night Shyamalan-level plot twist.

Will it be worth an early purchase?

It’s extremely hard to tell. For somebody still using a PS4, the difference should be enormous. The decision may be more difficult for PS5 and PS5 Pro owners though, particularly if many early PS6 games continue to appear on older hardware, and if the graphical jump between generations isn’t that noticeable on release.

There are also the usual reasons to wait. Launch prices tend to be high, exclusive games may initially be limited and game developers often need time to get to grips with a new console before they start delivering their best work.

Unless the PS6 launches with a game you absolutely need to play, waiting six to twelve months may be a better bet.

Based on the reliable evidence available today, the next PlayStation is likely to place greater emphasis on machine-learning graphics, backwards compatibility and ways to play beyond the traditional living-room console.

The precise release date, price, specifications, design, handheld plans and launch games are all still unknown.

It could be brilliant. At the likely cost, though, Sony will need to offer more than shinier puddles and a new controller.

We think they’ll deliver the goods though. Here’s hoping! 🤞

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All PS6 release dates, prices, specifications, configurations and game details described as predictions or rumours are based on public statements, analyst estimates or unconfirmed reporting. Sony has not officially announced the PS6.