PlayStation 5 is (finally) readily available after a long wait for the current-gen console to find a regular flow on the market. Across its short lifecycle, PS5 has suffered from considerable supply-and-demand issues but benefited from a steady handful of heavy-hitting exclusive games like Demon’s Souls and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
PS5’s impressive lineup of first-party titles and suite of immersive features have certainly kept console owners busy for the past three years. Sony itself, meanwhile, has been growing the PS5 ecosystem with new hardware like PlayStation VR2, PlayStation Portal, and the upcoming PS5 slim.
PS5 may been its prime, but fans are already starting to wonder what’s next for Sony and the PlayStation brand. It’s natural to assume there will be a PlayStation 6, even if Sony hasn’t said anything official about it. So we’re going to cover everything we know about PS6, which is not a lot, though we’ll be sure to update this page as more news arrives over the coming months (and years).
Playstation 6 Release Date
The time between new PlayStation home consoles has varied between six and seven years. This is often buffeted by interim models like the recently announced PS5 slim, which is launching three years after the base console’s release in 2020.
The current-gen PS5 was announced in 2019, six years after the release of its predecessor. Since we’re only three years into the PS5’s lifecycle, we’re probably still years away from a potential PS6 announcement.
The recent acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Xbox has opened a veritable Pandora's box of questions, one of which being the future of the Activision-owned Call of Duty franchise, which Xbox has promised to bring to Playstation for at least ten more years. A report by Eurogamer revealed retiring PlayStation boss Jim Ryan was concerned about sharing information with Activision regarding Sony’s future consoles in the wake of the now-approved deal. In court documents, Ryan is quoted as saying, “We simply could not run the risk of a company that was owned by a direct competitor having access to that information.”
While this doesn’t say anything particular about PS6 or its potential release date, it does indicate Sony is at least thinking about its next console, even if it may be years off.
Playstation 6 Price & Models
Sony trademarked PlayStation 6 all the way through to PlayStation 10 in 2019, so it's reasonable to assume it’s looking to continue the PlayStation dynasty. However, it’s worth noting companies regularly take out trademarks and patents to protect their business, and they don’t necessarily translate directly to products.
PlayStation 5 was released in 2020 with two variants:the standard PS5, which comes with a disc drive, and a cheaper, digital-only option. Both boast 825GB of internal storage. Slimmer models of both PS5 variants were recently announced and are launching with a full 1TB hard drive. Even with the extra storage, PlayStation 5 slim models are smaller in width, length, and depth, and they weigh less than the launch models.
It’s difficult to surmise what the potential pricing of a possible PlayStation 6 could be, and it’s hard to say what models and variants could rear their head. In this case, all we have to go off is Sony’s current models and historic approaches to refreshing PlayStations during their lifecycles.
Here are the prices for the upcoming Playstation 5 slim models for reference:
U.S.
- PS5 Slim with disc drive – $500
- PS5 Slim Digital Edition – $450
Europe
- PS5 Slim with disc drive – €550
- PS5 Slim Digital Edition – €450
U.K.
- PS5 Slim with disc drive – £480
- PS5 Slim Digital Edition – £390
Japan
- PS5 Slim with disc drive – 66,980 JPY (includes tax)
- PS5 Slim Digital Edition – 59,980 JPY (includes tax)
Playstation 6 - What Will the Playstation 6 Look Like?
With no official word from Sony on PS6, it’s impossible to know what the next iteration of the company’s iconic PlayStation console will look like. The PlayStation 5, with its collar-like spaceship design, was a drastic aesthetic shift away from the boxy, angular PlayStation 4. Similarly, the PlayStation 3 was a curvy, reflective number at launch, and it changed considerably during its lifecycle. This historic process of iterative change extends all the way back to the original PlayStation, so trying to conceptualize a PlayStation 6 is a tough ask.
What we do know is one of the upcoming PlayStation 5 Slim models will have a detachable disc drive users will be able to buy separately, which some believe foreshadows the platform holder’s future plans. Director of Research & Insights at Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad tweeted in October, "This is more indicative of Sony's current thinking around its approach for next-gen. If the new Digital Edition does gain traction and we see a continued trajectory of increased digital software sell-through, then I wouldn't be surprised if Sony makes digital + disc drive add-on the default option for [PS6]."
