Sony is cooking its beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console for 2024 and 2025, but the next-gen PlayStation 6 is definitely in development and will be a powerhouse next-gen console compared to the PS5.
We have some news from leaker RedGamingTech, who reports that the CPU and GPU -- well, the semi-custom APU design -- for the PlayStation 6 console haven't been decided on yet. Sony's upcoming APU for the PS6 is behind Microsoft's next-gen Xbox APU, as the PS6 will be launching after the next-gen Xbox.
Back before the PlayStation 5 was even official, I had an exclusive report that stated AMD and Sony were working together on the Navi-powered GPU for the PS5... and with AMD's next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture around the corner, we should expect some newer Zen 5-powered CPU cores, and RDNA 4-powered GPU cores inside of the APU for the PlayStation 6. GDDR7 memory will be out in 2024, so we should also expect some huge improvements in memory bandwidth -- and, more importantly -- power efficiency over the GDDR6 memory inside of the PS5.
Big areas of improvement: We should expect Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 console to have huge generative AI abilities, massively boosted ray tracing support, and the ability to use path tracing -- and I'm sure new graphical abilities -- for the PS6. We should see some of the teases of beefed-up graphics with the release of the PS5 Pro in 2024, which will be a taste of things to come from the PS6 in the future.
Sony is expected to use ray tracing reconstruction technology, which is something Sony talked about in a recent presentation. The presentation itself was based around movies, but the company also showed off the PlayStation logo and talked about games and how ray tracing will be a pivotal part of the future of console gaming. RedGamingTech sources have also said that path tracing on PlayStation 6 is "not going to be uncommon," just as today, where ray tracing isn't uncommon in console games. The games that support it will look amazing.
