As well as its recent anti-consumer move to stop production of physical discs, Sony’s upcoming PlayStation disc is expected to be the company’s most expensive console yet. While not confirmed by the company at the time of writing, the upcoming PS6, or PlayStation 6, is expected to cost upwards of $1,000 on launch.
As current generation PlayStation hardware continues to rise in price, the reality of a $1,000 next-gen console is quite clear. Right now, memory prices have skyrocketed alongside the cost of other components, and a PS6 launching at $1,000 is unfortunately in the realm of possibility.
As part of a wider discussion with Kotaku, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden claimed that everyone “should be afraid of the thousand-dollar console”. While audiences should be afraid of being priced out of gaming, developers should also be afraid of backing the new hardware as the adoption rate of the new console will be extremely low.
“That’s a whole lot of money. And particularly when a new console launches, you’re not going to have a lot of games for it,” the former PlayStation boss said, “You can have anywhere from maybe six to 12 that’ll be out there in that launch window. And if you put a four-digit price tag on the hardware against that, I think you really slow the adoption curve tremendously.”
Layden explained that the console market exists around the gravitational pull of the $399 pricetag. While the PlayStation 5 launched slightly higher at $499.99, it was close enough for some players to make the jump. However, jumping up in price to a massive $1,000 will see many unwilling and unable to bite the bullet.
There’s also the question of whether or not the jump in quality should result in a new console generation. “I mean really, how much more ray tracing can you put in there?” Layden told the outlet. “And will my eyes actually see 120 frames per second?”
Layden argues that “we’re already king of limiting our reach just because of the games we’re building now”. While prior console generations had variety and experimentation that required innovation in hardware, the PlayStation 5 generation has been rather stagnant. Yes, it can do ray-tracing, but that isn’t factored much into gameplay mechanics. Yes, it can load stuff fast, but few games use that tech other than for faster load screens. “We talk about how big we are, $220 billion, $250 billion industry, but our social impact is the reverse,” he continued.
The PlayStation 6 is expected to launch sometime in 2028, just eight years after the release of the PS5. Following the thirteen-year lifespan of its predecessor, it is coming fast out of the gate, and with the current generation offering few major exclusive titles on both PlayStation and Xbox’s side, it still feels like this gen has barley started.
