Somehow, it's been almost six years since the PS5 launched, and Sony has still said very, very little about the console's successor, presumably to be called the PS6. Release date rumors have been circling for months now, with the most optimistic guesses saying late 2027 and the most cynical predicting 2028 or 2029, or even into the 2030s. With the ongoing memory crisis keeping RAM prices significantly elevated, not to mention other economic variables making gaming consoles in particular expensive to make, hardware manufacturers across the board are facing a dilemma: stick to the regular console release cycle of six to seven years and force buyers to deal with exorbitant prices, or delay everything until things inevitably level out.
According to Embracer Group's latest annual financial report (via Resetera) Sony is considering moving the PS6's debut to 2028 or 2029 due to AI-driven price increases and tariff-related volatility in the US. "Both factors could potentially have a negative impact on console retail prices, which would, in turn, hamper market growth," reads Embracer's report. "In the longer term, higher RAM costs could also cause operational delays to the launch of future consoles.
"In fact some analysts believe that Sony is now considering pushing back the debut of its next PlayStation console from 2027 to 2028 or even 2029."
This is certainly a reasonable estimation given, well, *gestures broadly*, but I do have to wonder if these "analysts" Embracer is citing are actually just the sources at Bloomberg who claimed the same thing back in February. It's very possible that a publisher of Embracer's size has its own inside knowledge, but the fact that they're attributing that knowledge to "some analysts" gives me pause. If they are just going off Bloomberg's reporting, it's worth noting that the publication also correctly predicted Nintendo's Switch 2 price hike from May, lending further credibility. Either way, that reporting and Embracer's apparent analyst pals both stop short of saying the PS6 has already been delayed internally, so it's too soon to count 2027 out now.
