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In an impossible economy, upended by AI’s stranglehold on computing components, all hopes of the PS6 launching at a palatable price point appear to be dwindling by the day.
It’s been interesting following the commentary of KeplerL2 on NeoGAF, a renowned hardware leaker who purportedly has insight into Sony’s next-gen plans.
Back in March, he noted that the PS6 cost about $760 for Sony to make, potentially opening the door for a subsidised $699.99 price point.
But by July, the snoop reported that the bill of materials had risen to around $960, practically eradicating any possibility of the appliance being affordable to a mainstream audience at launch.
And now, in a new post, he claims that the console’s memory – so its RAM and SSD – currently costs over $680 alone. This is before you add in other aspects like the GPU, CPU, cooling, and so on.
It’s a nightmare scenario for the entire industry, because we’re now staring down the barrel of $1,000+ next-gen consoles, at a time when consumers are struggling to make ends meet.
Some may question the point in releasing the PS6 at all, but with all the research and development already done, the manufacturer may just have to put it out anyway. After all, there’s no guarantee things will improve any time soon.
I suppose the advantage Sony has here is its incumbent install base, and I suspect we’re going to see a long, long, long cross-gen period with the PS5. I doubt there’ll be any exclusive games for the PS6 for many years.
Of course, it’s going to be really difficult for the platform holder to illustrate the advantages of the new machine – especially at a time when console graphics have hit diminishing returns.
The PS6 will apparently be twice as powerful as the PS5, so we will definitely see better looking games on it. And the inclusion of a handheld model should bring some additional novelty, although that’s unlikely to be cheap either.
I think the real unfortunate thing here is that none of this is necessarily Sony’s fault.
Yes, it’s found ways to shoot itself in the foot over and over again of late, but the reason for the increasing costs is due to the insatiable demand of AI data centres. As long as that continues, the price of all consumer electronics will continue to rise.