Sony will inevitably observe up the PlayStation 5 with its subsequent era house console sooner or later. Primarily based on court docket paperwork from its US Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) trial over the try to amass Activision Blizzard in 2023, Microsoft believes its next-gen Xbox console and Sony’s PlayStation 6 will launch in 2028. A brand new declare, nevertheless, advances that timeline, suggesting the PlayStation father or mother is additional alongside the event cycle for the PS5 successor. The design of the chip that may energy the PS6 is reportedly prepared, and Sony may start producing the SoC for testing in late 2025.
PS6 Chip Design Stated to Be Prepared
The knowledge comes from KeplerL2, a dependable leaker who beforehand make clear PS5 Professional specs earlier than the console launched. In a number of posts on video games dialogue board NeoGAF, the leaker claimed the PS6’s SoC design was full. In accordance with them, Sony will kick off manufacturing on the primary batch of chips for testing in direction of the tip of 2025.
“PS6 is design full and in pre-si validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this 12 months,” the leaker mentioned on the discussion board.
“Pre-si validation” — or pre-silicon validation — refers to testing and validating a semiconductor design by way of laptop simulations and digital modelling earlier than finalising it for bodily manufacturing. “Tape-out”, alternatively, refers back to the closing step within the design course of earlier than chips are despatched out for fabrication on a wafer.
Responding to a different person who requested if the PS6 chip can be an N3 by-product (3nm course of) and thus can be unlikely to deliver significant positive factors over the PS5 Professional, KeplerL2 additional mentioned, “Not essentially, Zen6 is design full too and a few of it’s on N2,” referring to AMD’s Zen 6 chip structure, believed to utilise TSMC’s 3nm and 2nm processes and anticipated to launch in 2026.
The leaker additionally shed like on the PS6’s GPU, saying it was “an early fork of gfx13”, referring to what was to turn into AMD’s RDNA 5 graphics, however was later deserted in favour of “unified” UDNA graphics structure.
Keep in mind, the PS5 runs on a customized 7 nm AMD Zen 2 CPU designed by AMD and Sony with an built-in RDNA 2 GPU.
PS6 Launch Timeline
Lastly, the leaker, responding to a person who speculated that the PS6 may even see a late 2026 launch, recommended that Sony’s subsequent console may launch in 2027. “Sony’s standard cadence is 2 years from A0 tapeout to console launch,” they mentioned. If tape-out is believed to start by the tip of 2025, a late 2027 launch for the PS6 appears possible, which places the launch window a little bit sooner than what Microsoft expects, in line with leaked court docket paperwork from its FTC trial.
The timeline falls in keeping with Sony’s earlier console era cycles and launch cadence, too. The PS3 was launched in November 2006; seven years later, the PS4 arrived in November 2013. And the PS5 launched seven years after that in November 2020. It will thus be a secure wager to say the PS6 may come out someday round November 2027.
Final 12 months in September, Reuters reported that Intel misplaced out on the profitable contract to design and fabricate Sony’s PlayStation 6 chip in 2022 to AMD, dealing a big blow to the US chip large’s contract manufacturing enterprise.
