THE mysterious PlayStation 6 – the game box of the future – has Sony fans glued to the latest updates on when it might hit the shelves.
Here is everything we know about the PS6 so far, and whether you'll see it before 2030.
What is the PS6? Rumours and features
The PS6 is the console that may one day replace the PS5 – however, it has yet to be confirmed as an official target product.
Sony has been tight lipped regarding plans to make a PS6 – but that doesn't mean one isn't being developed in secret.
In keeping with Sony's history, it's likely that we'll see PS5 spin-offs beforehand: think PS5 Pro or PS5 Slim.
Sony bosses have previously said that the PS5 life cycle should last around six or seven years.
That's the closest we've got to PS6 confirmation, and it means we won't see it until the latter half of the decade.
It's too soon to say what kind of graphical hardware the PS6 will be packing. The chips that power it won't have been developed yet.
We'll probably see bigger storage than the PS5, if only due to the fact that game sizes have ballooned in recent years.
As far as design or feature go, it's impossible to say.
We could see a big focus on virtual reality, PlayStation cloud games delivered over the internet, storage enhancements and (hopefully) built-in Bluetooth support for wireless headphones. We can dream.
PS6 release date – when is it out?
There's no way to know exactly when the PS6 will be out.
But the console is slated to have a 2027 release date at the earliest, according to official documents from the Activision Blizzard court case.
This aligns with Sony's typical release cycle of seven to 10 years, as confirmed by Sony executive Masayasu Ito in 2019.
Here's when Sony released previous PlayStation consoles:
- PlayStation – December 3, 1994
- PlayStation 2 – March 4, 2000
- PS One – July 7, 2000
- PlayStation 2 Slimline – October 29, 2004
- PlayStation 3 – November 11, 2006
- PlayStation 3 Slim – September 1, 2009
- PlayStation 3 Super Slim – September 28, 2012
- PlayStation 4 – November 15, 2013
- PlayStation 4 Slim – September 15, 2016
- PlayStation 4 Pro – November 10, 2016
- PlayStation 5 – November 12, 2020
It's clear that Sony likes to keep busy, dropping plenty of consoles over the past three decades.
What's also clear is that we're likely to see a PS5 spin-off before the PS6 hits the shelves.
If the PS4 and PS3 are anything to go by, we could see something just three years after the PS5 release.
That puts a spin-off console in 2023, or maybe 2024.
For the PS6 release date, we need to look at the gaps between console generations.
Let's examine them…
- PlayStation to PlayStation 2 ~6 years
- PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3 ~6 years
- PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 ~7 years
- PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 ~7 years
So by that timeline, we'd expect to see the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 6 have a gap of six or seven years.
That would put a PS6 release date at some point in 2026 or 2027.
And Sony seems to prefer November launches for main console entries (just in time for Christmas), so November 2027 could be the best call.
It also seems likely that the launch will be close to a weekend (think Thursday, Friday or Saturday).
An early guess based on all of that? We're going with Friday, November 12 in 2027.
Of course, Sony could adopt a completely different timeline – so don't mark your calendars just yet.
