PS6 Leak May Hint at Console’s Release Window

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 18, 2025 2 Views 6 Min Read
PS6 Leak May Hint at Console's Release Window

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.

The PlayStation 6 may hit the market as early as late 2027, as suggested by a new report from a well-known industry insider. This purported release window aligns with what Sony itself previously said about how long this current console generation is going to last.

As part of a consolidated financial report published in February 2024, Sony President and CFO Hiroki Totoki said that the 2020 PlayStation 5 had already entered “the latter half” of its life cycle at the time. The statement, which was subsequently reiterated by Sony SVP Naomi Matsuoka, indicated that the PS6 is on course to hit the market no later than 2028.

PS6 mockup logo over PS5 air vent blue background 2x1 composite

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The possibility of an even earlier release has now been raised by NeoGAF user Kepler_L2, who previously correctly leaked a number of PS5 Pro details, in addition to sharing many other hardware-related scoops. On January 17, Kepler_L2 reported that the PS6 is “design-complete” and currently in “pre-si[licon] validation,” indicating that Sony is currently in the process of testing the console’s system-on-chip digitally to ensure that it works as intended before moving on to creating its first physical prototypes. The initial iteration of the PS6 SoC is said to be code-named A0, with its tapeout scheduled for late 2025. Sony has historically moved to the SoC tapeout phase—the process of manufacturing test chips—roughly two years before commercializing such silicon in mass-produced consoles.

PS6 SoC’s Process Node Is Still an Unknown

Should history repeat itself this time around, the PS6 may be released in late 2027. In that event, the PS5 would end up having a similar lifespan to the PS4, which also hit the market seven years before its successor. The process node of the next-gen console’s chip is still an unknown. The PS5’s SoC utilizes TSMC’s N7 node family, specifically the 7nm manufacturing process, while its PS5 Pro counterpart relies on the 6nm process from the same family. The PS6 is rumored to be based on AMD’s UDNA architecture—the successor to RDNA4, which was previously code-named RDNA5—and is expected to introduce a 3nm die shrink. However, it remains unclear if the 3nm node will be the sole manufacturing process in this family.

PS6 is design-complete and in pre-si[licon] validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year.

PS6 Might Beat Next-Gen Xbox Console to the Market

A potential late 2027 PS6 release suggests that Sony’s next console could arrive ahead of the Xbox Series X/S successor(s). Poorly redacted documents from Microsoft’s legal battle with the FTC over the Activision Blizzard acquisition in 2023 revealed that the Xbox maker is targeting a 2028 release for its next console—or at least that was the plan as of 2022, when the leaked documents originated. Either way, if the A0 SoC does enter the physical prototype stage of development in late 2025, more PS6 hardware leaks could emerge by early 2026.

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