Sony Has Still Not Decided a Release Date for PS6, Says CEO Hiroki Totoki

Sony has not yet confirmed its plans for the PlayStation 6, but industry analysts believe the next-generation console will launch next year. Ongoing memory and storage shortages, however, could delay the console's release. Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki has said that the company is yet to decide on a release date for the PS6.

In a wide-ranging interview with Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Totoki discussed several aspects of Sony's business, including the release of the company's next-gen console. The chief executive confirmed that the PlayStation parent still hadn't fixed a date for PS6's launch. Totoki did not share any other details about Sony's plans for the PS6.

The tenth generation of consoles, which includes Microsoft's Project Helix Xbox and Sony's PS6, is expected to roll out sometime in 2027, seven years after the release of current-gen consoles, Xbox Series S/X and PS5.

However, growing AI infrastructure demand in recent years has put intense pressure on RAM and storage supplies. With a large chunk of memory and storage production now tied up in AI, component shortages have hit the consumer electronics market hard. Prices of memory, storage, and GPUs have skyrocketed as console makers rush to secure memory for their hardware.

PS6 Expected to Be Delayed

In the current market environment, several analysts expect the next-gen consoles to be delayed beyond 2027. Unless prices of components come down, PS6 and the next Xbox could debut above $1,000 mark.

Totoki stressed the need for Sony to change to survive in the current economic environment of disruptions. “Considering that importance, we need to take some action. Otherwise, we cannot survive in this landscape,” he said in the interview.

Sony and Microsoft have not yet announced a release window for their respective next-gen gaming consoles. Last month, Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls claimed that the PS6 won't launch before 2028.

The analyst based the prediction on Sony's announcement of its plan to end physical disc production for new PlayStation games starting January 2028. He said that the announcement almost certainly guaranteed that PS6 would not arrive until 2028 at the earliest.

Ampere estimated that the PS6 will launch sometime towards the end of 2028. Harding-Rolls also claimed that a potential standard version of PS6 will likely not come with a physical media disc drive, “at the minimum”.