PS6 Could Be the Last PlayStation Console Designed by Iconic Architect

It shouldn’t matter to much, consoles are just AMD X86 PC’s. Sony has plenty of in house engineers that can help with that. I like Mark tho and think his time has been helpful, but retiring is always the goal.

Cerny is a legend in my eyes. Hope the next guy lives up to his reputation. I’ll miss the asmr videos

Damn, no matter what you think about the guy or SONY in general, gotta say his philanthropic program is pretty cool. Definetly beats throwing endless money on non profits.

Will Knack be back for PS6?

Wondering if "PS6 Could Be the Last PlayStation Console" would be a more accurate headline.
All digital subscription model only PS7! Letttt'sss gooooo!...?

Shame but he's earned his retirement, absolute legend.

Having his last console to be a flop is such a sad way to go though.

Legends never die, they just retire.

@CielloArc PS5 did not flop lol

This bloke's a legend

Cerny Compuder Ennertainment

Article forgot to mention Cerny's greatest achievement, being the lead on Knack

@HonestHick I don’t think it’s that simple. Being a developer meant that Cerny was able to bridge the gap between hardware specs and what developers want, the perfect antidote to the tech spec focused Kutaragi. While modern consoles may well be derived from a common set of hardware designs, just pointing to a random guy on the team and telling him to make a console is not likely to give the same results.

Cerny had a unique set of skills that he was able to expand upon when needed, and finding someone with a similar skill set is the harder part than just ordering an AMD x86 chipset

Crucially, Cerny has never been employed by Sony directly, he has always worked as a contractor which meant he didn't really have to answer to people and bother with tedious business stuff. He did his thing and presented it to the management without too much intrusion. I can't imagine anyone else getting that freedom.

It'd be a sad end of a legendary career, but this guy has been around since the Mega Drive days. Our heroes and icons aren't getting older. At least he'll be remembered for only positive things he contributed to the industry.

@ShadowRJ Mega Drive?

Cerny left Berkley University at 17 to work in Atari's arcade division in 1982. He designed and co-programmed Marble Madness at 18 (I believe there is a GDC or something talk about how that game was developed). He then went to Sega Japan to make Master System games before setting up STI and getting Yuji Naka to make Sonic 2 in the US.

Mark Cerny is a genius and also a legend. He's been in this industry for decades worked at Atari, Sega, Universal etc. He deserves his retirement but the day his retired Sony will lost a genius who designed their console for decades.

Not sure if Sony already prepare someone close to Mark level to design PS7. But maybe at that time there will be no console anymore with games became 100% streaming only (ewww).

Sadly, i will not buy Mark last console. But again everything have a start and finish line.

@LowDefAl Good lord, I didn't realise he was involved in gaming for THAT long. I know he helped design Crash 2 and Sonic 2 (some of the best platformers ever) but even during the Atari days.......

The PS3 had better architecture. PS4 released with very outdated tech on release, ran hot, and sounded like a jet engine. Still a great console though , never had any problems, and the rhombus shape was cool.

also inb4 YLOD, that was with the fully BC models.

The legendary designer behind Crash Bash

Fitting that he leaves when discs do.

@nomither6 The PS3 had a better CPU. The actual architecture around it wasn't. BY DESIGN, it was a confusing mess that made making games for it significantly more difficult than it needed to be.

@nomither6 The PS3 did not have better architecture it had a more complicated architecture. It's not better if it's a pig to use and a struggle to use half of the chip. The graphics chip was a panic option which combined with a ridiculously complicated cpu held the ps3 back. Once you remove the SPU's, the Cell is closer to being a Xbox 360 chip (fairly off the shelf Power PC).

The PS4 may not have used the best CPU architecture but it was a Lot easier to get performance from.

The noise wasn't a Cerny issue, he designed how the system worked, not the physical design and casing (and airflow) which was done by Sony Japan.

@LowDefAl If I remember correctly, Sony were supposed to receive a custom GPU by Samsung (or some other manufacturer) but the deal went through last minute, which meant that Sony had to use a significantly weaker GPU than was planned.

@LowDefAl the cell was exceptionally powerful and the GPU was that of a high end PC. On release the launch PS3 was rivaling the higher end PCs for several months. No other console released with cutting edge tech relative to its time period like the PS3. They went all out with making a mega console and people didn’t appreciate it.

I don’t know what you mean by the PS3s own tech holding it back either. I guess you mean figuratively because devs struggled with it. The PS3 had great tech , the world just didn’t want it

Cerny has done a splendid job during his carrer, he deserves his retirement.

@Liam_Croft: "PS7 (is this the first mention of such a thing on the site?)"

I recall it being mention atleast once before.
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2019/10/random_sony_trademarks_playstation_10_in_japan

I reckon PS6 Pro will be his last.

@HonestHick A company well known and regarded for hardware engineering hired Cerny to design the last few generations of PlayStation. Sony must be kicking themselves when they could have just popped down to tech town and had them knock one up.

@LowDefAl PS3 It was state of the art for the time. It was equivalent to high medium to high end PC at the time. Just because developers were not equipped with the knowledge to use its theoretical power doesn’t mean the architecture was bad.

@SleepyNick So he was the mastermind behind my 200% playthrough of that game....

I take back everything I said. That an caused me an entire week of torture (sarcasm)

@nomither6 bro just stop, PS3 was the worst. The only PS that made me buy an Xbox, that is 360. Those days most games were night and day better on 360 because I had both and did comparisons myself. Not to mention how it's held all its games in jailCELL we can't even get to play them.

Mark was a prodigy. But he hasn't exactly blown our minds with feature sets like emulation for past PS generations with enhancements like the competition. Despite that, seeing him around the brand will be missed. He was awesome to listen to.

Thank you for you contributions towards the gaming industry Mark, hope you enjoy retirement whenever it comes, well earned!

@CielloArc Not in terms of sales it hasn't.

@Bizzy subscription model will never replace buying the game.

Until the end we will always be able to buy the game individually. That will never go away. How we buy may change or differ.

But a subscription only really benefits the company whos subscription platform it is.

So unless like we have now with tv that every major player has a subscription app. Then I just dont see it happening

@For-Kier People like a good simplistic box for gaming. Myself included.

Also, not everywhere has top of the range fibre optics, so theres a lot of people who will not have acceptable speeds for streaming.

@TheArt i have both too. the 360 was amazing and outclassed the PS3 in areas, but the PS3 was still great too. That’s just your opinion about it being the worst. the hate is exaggerated, but whatever.

Probably be the last home console with actual internals anyway.

Sad that he's going. He's whip smart with an eye for innovation and has great engineering sense. And crucially, starting with PS4, he consulted extensively with devs to find out what the pain points were and how Sony could design a console that would ease or even eliminate many of those headaches.

Sometimes I like to throw on that PS5 architect video that Cerny did and listen to it when I have to get stuff done.

@TheArt Personally I didn't like either the PS3 or Xbox 360 all that much. That entire generation soured my perception of gaming for a long time. Not to say great games aren't there for it (there most certainly is) but when people complain about this generation (for good reasons) I sometimes think people forgotten the many problems existed during the 7th generation.

@ShadowRJ Can't count how many times I had to open up my 360 to clean the lens. And then they released that game-changing update to fully install games on the HDD and read from there, though the disc needed to be in, helped a lot with wear and tear on the lens.

I like this chap. He reminds me of someone's grandma I used to know.

Mad respect for Cerny. Sure 90% of the things he talks about goes right over my head when it comes to the nitty-gritty of console manufacturing but I could always tell he was super passionate about his work!

If PS6 is his last then here's hoping it goes out on a high note.

@themightyant

Yeah little chance it flops he's just upset, may just be a slow burn similar to PS3
Saying that Sony aren't struggling selling £800 pros right now. Landscape is just different to 2007

This generation has been a bit of a mess for Sony game wise, some great, some good and some major blunders - live service and closing studios like Bluepoint.

However the hardware has been brilliant, the ps5 and the pro and the portal are all very well built.

He will be a major loss but I hope he has someone below him that is ready to step up and continue the great hardware work.

It could the last console. Let’s be real there probably won’t be a market from the machines in 10 years time.

I loooooved playing Marble Madness at Aladdin’s Castle! It was one of my staples growing up in an arcade. That and Defender.

thank you all for the kind words

Mark Cerny will always be a legend. If there is hope for the PS6, it rests with him.

>> He does at least say he's "not done yet" <<

Knack 3 confirmed

@nomither6 the ps3 design was cool i even have one of the silmmer models and i still have my og ps3 floating around , idk if it even works tbh. honestly i wish they went amd with the ps3 era instead of the cell , if they did we would have had the ablity to play ps3 games on the new consoles, and we would have gotten a cheaper ps3.

@Neuromancer I thought the Xbox 360 had way too many gritty depressing shooters for it, a major problem with that entire era to be honest. Even the non shooters were mostly dark and gritty, and the art styles were really unappealing, not to mention the terrible performance that plagued the entire era.

To me the best Xbox is still the original.

@twitchtvpat PS3 times are my fondest memories of gaming. The days when I first lived on my own at 22. Come home from work and just game all night or all weekend if I wanted. No Mrs kids or anything else. Just me and my friends online on GT5 or GTAIV. Now when I get the chance I’m introducing my kids to videogames and my daughter in particular is loving it. We’ve been playing Broken Sword and she’s so invested it’s great. We haven’t got to the famous lochmarne goat yet and I cannot bloody wait to watch her try to figure it out 🙃. There’s a lot of doom and gloom about PS particularly amongst the hardcore fans but the fact these things keep selling 100’s of millions of units tells me they ain’t going anywhere anytime soon

@themightyant Of course PS6 will sell. But wait with statements on who eats his words, it will sell MUCH worse than PS5 which sold worse than PS4. See a trend there?

PS6 is probably the last actual physical home console. Future is hybrid or cloud.

@Leinad7
The trend goes downward, but tbh PS5 got hit by two shortages, one at the begining of its life cycle and another right now at the end, the price also went up and outpriced a fair share of its potential consumer base.

If it wasn't for those factors, the potential to outsell PS4 was there, they would simply grasp and surf the PS4 momentum into the next gen.

PS6 on the other hand has an uphill battle ahead, and all the odds are against it given Sony has lost a good chunk of consumer support. People aren't willing to put both their trust and their money into Sony right now.

That is an extremely young looking 62! I thought he was in his 40s!

@ProfessorNiggle Cloud gaming will never have acceptable latency because it’s inherently going to take much longer to send button inputs to, and receive rendered frames from, a remote server farm, than the hardware sitting across from you.

Remember how that worked out for Google? One of the largest companies in the entire world?

Streaming games is not like streaming a video where you can buffer it, or where a half-second delay is acceptable.

@asdfghjklz it is 2026. PS6 comes out 2028 earliest. Discussions of after PS6 - which is the future - is probably coming into effect from 2033 or later.

Cloud is not going to be what it is now in 7+ years time. Places getting fibre optic for cheap when internet in those areas were poor not too long ago shows the trend. So yes, Cloud is the future.

It doesn’t matter without new physical games on PlayStation after January 2028. I’m not interested in PS6.

@ProfessorNiggle for cheap bruh there trying to charge people 10k for laying down fiber that's not cheap

@LowDefAl @themightyant first off you make a lot of good points and i want to add Mark is a smart man, but also from what i have seen of him a very nice man. Just because someone is smart isn’t a reason to have an attitude or be cocky and he was never that. The industry needs more of that in my opinion. That out of the way

I agree that his background made it a strength to what console devs wanted. Remember Sony gave devs the Cell and while it was powerful at times. Sony didn’t go to far out of their way in the beginning to help teams with the issues. Meanwhile Xbox 360 was easy to develop for and about 9 out of 10 games ran better on it not to mention head lead the way for PC games to come to console. Sony contracted him to help them into X86 architecture and make sure they were easy to work with and Mark did a great job with that. Now that Sony is far more American than Japanese they have some great resources to work with and the knowledge of what X86 looks and works like. That don’t mean Mark won’t be missed in some ways cause he will. But they have in house knowledge of the system now since around 2013.

Also Mark was a big part of PS5 Pro and that got off to a very rough start. Digital Foundary even showed many base games working better and even to this day a lot of the Pro enhancements are iffy at best and i have a $2,000 dollar Tv and a $1,200 dollar Oled monitor so if i can’t see it the game don’t have it. That said i understand a lot of that is on the devs, but they weren’t given great tools at first nor was PSSR 1.0 very good until they worked together with AMD for 2.0, add in XBox One X was a better machine than PS4 Pro in power and rendering. Not saying that is a huge stain on Mark cause it isn’t but we have to be fair with how we access all the data over the last two consoles.

I will miss Mark, i think he’s smart and classy. Speaks with confidence and never looks to shy from challenges within the console space. You made some great points and i think that speaks to how much we all respect Mark.

@CielloArc he is a designer, whether it sells or not is a matter of brand popularity and marketing. He'll be always proud of his role in the entire industry, not just playstation

I think Sony completely lost it with the latest news that they pulled the plug on Kojimas physint which will now be produced by Xbox. It's not like they truly gave up their live service phantasy either.

I'm not a fan of the PS4 and PS5 designs, but the controllers are nice and feel comfortable. The PS vita was also good but the back touchpad may have been a bad choice. And also the vita exclusive memory card was a bad idea. Would love to see another Vita without the back touchpad.

Kojima going to Xbox is another sign that PlayStation has completed lost touch with their hardcore fanbase and just doesn’t care about gamers. Physint will probably end up being the spiritual successor to MGS 5.

At first I read the headline as, PS6 could be Sony’s last console.
Sadly, It seemed plausible to me, since Sony seems to be heading in the, games as a subscription services direction, which would give them total control, and could be done with streaming. I bet they’d just love that.
Sony reminds me these days of the Fawlty Towers motto:
The hotel would run perfectly, if it wasn’t for the guests.

@Suda51ueda Another big L for Sony. I don't understand what on earth is happening with Sony. But one thing for sure: Sony will have a very hard time convincing hardcore gamers to buy a PS6.

PS6 predictions >

• 2-3x the power of a base PS5 - (In between a 5070 & 5070 Ti)
• PSSR3
• Haptics 2
• Adaptive Triggers 2
• 500hz polling rate (less controller & Gyro latency)
• 9-Axis Gyro
• Another controller innovation or two
• For Sony to finally ditch their detached-styled D-pad and go traditional like NS2's Pro Controller. here's hoping!

Still, if PS6 doesn't get PlayStation VR3, or glasses that injects Stereoscopic 3D(As if you're peering through a window into another world, with 3D pop, similar to 3DS but on a 65" Screen for example.) into a size adjustable MR display than I think I might just pass.

Also, supporting resolution beyond 4K would be benifical exclusively for VR & stereoscopic 3D. Since both require, lets say, 4K to be split into each eye which equals 1080p per eye. if it supports 8K, than you'd get native 4K per eye for an S3D screen for example.

Nobody cares about 8K TV's. it's completely out of the realm. PS5 Pro still struggles to get modern games clocked at native 4K. it's serious diminishing returns unless you're opting for a 77"- 83" OLED. But most people can't afford nor have an 83-incher. Even 77 is pushing it.

4K still looks the best on a 55" imo, it's just a little more tack sharp, but 65", depending on the title is more immersive and epic, like with Resident Evil 2&3 Remake, or Requiem running on PS5 Pro at 120fps. It's so funny to think that a 50" TV for ex, back in like 2009 was huge....Now 65" feels like the norm, with 50" looking tiny.

Honestly PlayStation as we knew it and loved it is dead. I'm not overreacting but look at the state of this gen and what is lining up for next gen. Poor leadership, poor management, poor communication, constantly choosing and pruning the wrong projects, not satisfying fans AT ALL. Just a shambles from Sony.

> "with a PS7 (is this the first mention of such a thing on the site?) probably arriving another seven to eight years after it."

Theres not going to be a PS7, you stupid slut

@WaveBoy I have a 75" TV and can tell you with 100% confidence that anything higher than 4k wouldnt even make a difference especially if it was upscaled to that by DLSS which is just laughable considering what the current state of things is. I wouldnt even make my rtx 5080 attempt to scale higher than 4k

@themightyant Sure. The problem is where PS4 sales were still up, PS5 sales went down. With current sales they will not catch up with PS4.

Not to mention nearly 20m people still couldn’t find a reason to swap PS4 to PS5.

With recent actions from Sony including killing discs, growing prices and canceling games - sales will not go up.

@spottedleaf
I'll take your word for it. I haven't bought anything beyond 65" just yet. If anything, I've heard some people say that PS5 games look a touch softer at 77 vs 65", but are they actually feeding it native 4K content?

5K - 8K is extremely important for both VR & Stereoscopic 3Ding' flatscreen games, since the resolutoin has to be split in half for each eye in order to perceive 3D depth & pop. You've got to double the resolution to 8K in order to get the image as clear as it would be with a native 4K PS5 game being displayed on a 4K OLED TV, which is twice the load!

So that's where 5-8K is absolutely benificial if Sony decides to whip out a PSVR3 or 3D MR based glasses, even if they decided to give PSVR3's resolution 2.5K per eye which equals 5K, unless I'm mistaken?

@themightyant The flop is not always when you generate loss in sales. It’s also when actual sales are much lower than expectations.

There is a clear reason in current gen Sony is no longer pushing console sales to be higher to reach PS4 sales. They lowered their expectations because in reality it wasn’t possible.
They already said PS6 will sell less. Again - lower your expectations.

@GilaMonster he's talking about the PS6 being a flop due to high price tag, likely digital only. The total disrespect shown towards it's s player base over recent events. Lack of games and new IPs. The CEO talking of new ways to milk it's consumers.

Between Xbox and playstation they're deliberately self destructing through bad decisions. I will quite happily retire from future consoles and switch to pc and mister for retro games. I'm not paying silly money for a console just to lease games without any protections for digital games.

@GilaMonster I'm not fighting anyone's battles. You mentioned the ps5 when he was talking about ps6

@WaveBoy You have an interesting point about VR and 3D, and it just begs the question if those technologies are ready yet...

also about games being softer, if you are feeding it 1440p signals or something it will look soft, since only 1080p integer scales to 4K. I think that can be part pf the problem since not all games reach 4k

@spottedleaf
Have you experienced VR before with PSVR1, PSVR2 or Quest 3? I'm telling you, the VR cutscenes in Resident Evil Village VR are mind blowing. Subside's DLC 'Makoa Shelf' (The Tiger sharks are just terrifying)is another must-play that's a wonderful showpiece for the technology.

And yes, it's totally ready. Just not the form factor, weight and cable getting in the way. Steam frame rectifies most of Q3 & PSVR2's issues. Makes sense sense being a 2026 headset and all.

Steam Frame + PCVR(that has a bit more juice than a PS5 Pro) is where' I'm headed. it's a big investment, but i need new hardware after owning both Q3 & PSVR3 for a few years now. As awesome as they've been, the blemishes are starting to show.

Well time to get used to cloud I guess? Aka not happening. So much for the PS7 and more trademarks.

But what about the PS9? Sony you had one job, make the PS2 ad happen with PS9, the liquid/sense the PS9, we have to come on. XD Oh well.

PS6 doesn't interest me, PS5 didn't interest me, PS4 was disappointing as it is so to me it's my current last right now, technically Vita as my most recent of PS devices purchased so I mean. What else is there to enjoy? Bland games, who knows if the controller gimmick is worth it, decent hardware sure, a terrible OS layout when I didn't mind PS4, PS3/PSP was busy and complex at times, possible enough to get around. None are going back to PS1/2 design ever again. Vita was good.

Will continue to enjoy consoles as long as can, especially old ones and the rest will be PC. Gameplay isn't exciting anymore and devices and controller gimmicks are fun, why would I want those to go away for 'generic gaming' via the cloud and generic controllers. That's just boring.

Not a 'cloud' OS and only PC or AR/VR coding or AI coding, whatever platforms can be used by developers and customers getting forced out of it. Even tech enthusiasts. Shivers to that future.

Or phone as the future which if that's the case humanity really is pushing the bar.