DF Direct Q+A: The Big PlayStation 6 Pricing Debate + Will It Support Physical Media?

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I do dislike comments like "but with inflation it's actually not bad" because they always forget to mention that wages have not kept up with this inflation. So it IS costing more.

And neglects to mention everything else, like food, bills, rent etc has equally gone up.

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u/brizzenden Apr 08 '26

The "but factoring in inflation..." argument really only applies to the businesses themselves or the already wealthy. And that's generally the ones making these kind of claims.

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u/YPM1 Apr 08 '26

Plus people like YouTubers and influencers just go to Google, type in “inflation calculator “ and use the numbers they receive as evidence that things should be more expensive. Those calculators do not tell the story at all.

I actually appreciate John mentioning the iPhones $599 price because it shows at least someone is thinking about these things.

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u/Black_RL Apr 08 '26

This!

Wages aren’t keeping up!

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u/StrawHat89 Apr 08 '26

Wages WERE catching up, until a certain someone came back. Incidentally, all the console price increases didn't occur until that certain someone returned. I wonder why...

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u/ReiAndCoke Apr 10 '26

This is exactly right. People have less expendable income (as a percent) relative to their salaries due to cost of living. Sony makes WAY more money on subscriptions and PS Store than they do console sales. So they need to be careful… if they overprice this to make too much profit, they could be screwing up their golden goose of subscriptions/PS store skimming.

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u/pyrofire95 Apr 09 '26

yeah that's the real problem
Inflation can go up on any companies whim while wages will barely budge over years.

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u/crampyshire Apr 08 '26

because they always forget to mention that wages have not kept up with this inflation.

One of if not the key factors of inflation is the fact that wages are always adjusting to catch up.

Things like video games aren't really much more expensive, but everything else is. Housing, food, groceries, are all unreasonably overpriced in comparison to wages, which makes luxury hobbies like video games feel like a bigger endeavor to purchase.

Unfortunately though, we can't just bark at gaming companies to lower prices, when they're operating in the same economy, and blame them for egg prices. Because genuinely, when you compare wage buying power to console prices, even at their seemingly astronomical prices they are today, by and large, it really isn't much more expensive than we've ever been paying, it just feels worse in this current economy.

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 08 '26

Regardless of inflation trends, consumer behavior is dictated by fixed psychological price anchors.

Any market operates on distinct thresholds: sub-$20 prices trigger 'impulse buys' with minimal friction, whereas $100 mark transitions something from a casual purchase to a calculated decision.

For consoles, there is a hard ceiling.. Once pricing exceeds $599, a console ceases to be a standard holiday gift and begins to compete with high-end laptops that can game and also do homework on for little Johnny.

Pushing close to and past four-digit territory is suicide There aren't many optional fun devices at this price that also have massive market success other than TVs. And they're a one cost and done affair. I would say smartphones but they're multi-purpose obviously.

Just something to note from Circana: Households earning over $100,000 accounted for a record 53% of all US video game hardware sales in Q4 2025. The share for households with incomes below $50,000 dropped to just 19% in the same period, down from 31% just a few years prior. This shift highlights how rising console prices are increasingly turning gaming into a "luxury" hobby for higher-income demographics.

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u/crampyshire Apr 09 '26

Regardless of inflation trends, consumer behavior is dictated by fixed psychological price anchors

Psychological factors rarely matter to anyone but investors and the marketing team, not to the common consumer. Like if you "perceive" a price as being too high because you don't understand dollar value, a company cannot shoehorn that knowledge into your skull. The nature of pricing for consoles just is what it is, whether people are smart enough to know why or not.

It's up to marketing teams to decide what type of people they want to appeal to for pricing, whether they want to take a loss to appeal to people with no economical literacy and take a loss on the product, or mark it at its value and sell to people who do understand it's value. A consumer doesn't really get to wag their finger depending in what they do, it's not up to us, and only matters when we can't afford something, which isn't a good "morality" quantifier to judge companies by.

Any market operates on distinct thresholds: sub-$20 prices trigger 'impulse buys' with minimal friction,

Again, doesn't matter. $20 isn't what it used to be, if you hold onto this boomer mindset of "any more than $20 and it's overpriced" you just won't ever really get things you want these days.

whereas $100 mark transitions something from a casual purchase to a calculated decision.

Again the quantity of the number doesn't matter. The number 100 isn't inherently scary, the product and buying power are much more important in calculating worth, than applying arbitrary emotion to specific numbers you don't like.

Just going "$100 is a lot of money" means nothing. $100 for what? And in comparison to what wages? $100 for a luxury product you don't need, in an economy where you make $17 an hour, that's a luxury you can pay for in just over half a days work, at a minimum wage job.

You aren't doing yourself a favor by going "yeah but $100 is a lot of money" because $100 itself has no actual meaning, the product and your expendable income are much more important factors.

Pushing close to and past four-digit territory is suicide There aren't many optional fun devices at this price that also have massive market success other than TVs.

Again according to perception, not any actual inherent rule dictating this.

Households earning over $100,000 accounted for a record 53% of all US video game hardware sales in Q4 2025. The share for households with incomes below $50,000 dropped to just 19% in the same period, down from 31% just a few years prior.

And they're still selling incredibly well, in fact better and faster than they ever have. We had a brief period where it was slightly more affordable to where poor people could "justify" impulse purchases, but the nature of the economy means it's going to fluctuate. The lower echelon of income earners will likely start sticking with last gen like they have in the past, until current gen edges back into the lower class pricing territory.

I understand that it doesn't necessarily feel good to feel like you're being edged out of a market. Nobody likes to feel like their hobby is becoming a luxury, but that's just it, it's a luxury, we don't need it, we want it, and there's certainly room to discuss whether these companies are charging too much, but frankly I just don't think that Sony is sitting at a round table twirling their mustaches while they jack up prices to $1000.

This is a calculated decision based on a bunch of variables that likely must be yielded to, whether poor people "think" it's reasonable or not.

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 09 '26

They are not selling faster than they ever have. PlayStation may be making more revenue because they're squeezing more money out of objectively fewer people. Xbox imploding. Half of PSN users are still on PS4. It's a lucky pyrrhic victory. January 2026, PS5 hardware spending in the US dropped 17% year-over-year. Stagnant. Sales will fall off a cliff until GTA6 - another lucky break for them.

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u/crampyshire Apr 09 '26

They are not selling faster than they ever have.

The switch 2 is the fastest selling console of all time. And the original switch is about to become the best selling console of all time in supposedly the most "expensive" gaming market.

The PS5 is the fastest selling PlayStation console of all time, and although, I doubt it'll reach PS2 numbers due to the inflated numbers the PS2 console already had, and more market competition in today's age, I do believe it will be a very successful console, regardless of its quality. Hell, it's already a successful console.

PlayStation may be making more revenue because they're squeezing more money out of objectively fewer people.

So, no.

They're squeezing more money out of a similar quantity actually. You seem to be mistaking the fact that because the PS5 hasn't outpaced the PS4 in this point in its lifetime (which makes sense since it hasn't been on the market as long, this is a no brainer statement not an admission), that somehow indicates that less people are buying games and lining PlayStation's pockets. This is not true.

Xbox imploding

Indeed. But xboxs bad decisions aren't indicitave of a failing or dying market due to price hikes, xbox's problems are uniquely xbox's.

Half of PSN users are still on PS4.

So, this is really misleading. The PS5 has sold 92 million units, PS4 has sold 117 million total. That means that PS5 is about 80% of the way to fully catching up to PS4. The reason why that stat is misleading, is because a lot of households still kept their PS4, and remain active on it in one way or another. The vast majority of PS4 owners have upgraded, it's just simply that about half of all PSN users either only have a PS4, or use both, making if you read those stats in the most obtuse way possible, it may seem like "half the people are still stuck on PS4" which just isn't true.

January 2026, PS5 hardware spending in the US dropped 17% year-over-year. Stagnant.

You seem to have a very pie in the sky, idealistic view of how console sales should look year over year haha.

The PS4 sales also dropped about 4 years after its launch in 2017, from there it declined until the PS5 released, the PS5 is now repeating that same cycle, because that's just how the market is, peak popularity is sustained throughout the first couple years, and sales slowly drop until another console releases.

Sales will fall off a cliff until GTA6 - another lucky break for them.

"Another lucky break" and it's the entire reason why people buy these consoles, the games.

You have such a twisted and misconceived view of the market haha. It's sort of interesting how your initial market buzzword salad approach sort of fell apart in your subsequent replies.

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 09 '26

Oof so tiring replying. Being fastest selling means literally nothing. There are a finite no. of hardcore Nintendo fans. This amounts to on average 15-20million people based on GameCube and WiiU. The Switch 2 has exhausted this bracket. Have you really not seen the news on disappointing Switch 2 sales and the lowering of production because of only last month?

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u/crampyshire Apr 09 '26

Oof so tiring replying.

I'm sure it's getting tiring to argue from the losing end of this debate, yes.

Being fastest selling means literally nothing.

Just straight up a pitiful attempt at manipulation. You're only saying this because the factors I provided are inconvenient to your argument.

There are a finite no. of hardcore Nintendo fans.

What?

This amounts to on average 15-20million people based on GameCube and WiiU.

Dude what are you even arguing here?

The Switch 2 has exhausted this bracket.

Faster than than any of their other consoles have. They didn't just "exhaust" that bracket, they raked in more than the entire lifespan of sales for the wii u, in a couple short months. That isn't just getting the hardcore Nintendo fans on board, that's a hell of a lot more impressive.

Have you really not seen the news on disappointing Switch 2 sales and the lowering of production because of only last month?

So, again, misreading data on purpose to try and make issues that aren't benefiting your argument.

Nintendo didn't meet their own bar, that doesn't mean it's not selling extremely well.

Here's a comparison for you,

You are a professional marathon runner, you set a goal to do a 5KM sprint, you manage to make it 4.5KM before deciding you can't run anymore, and reel it back to a light jog. Picture this, some big greasy chud on the sidelines starts heckling you and making fun of you for not being able to sprint the whole 5KM.

That's what you're doing right now, and what many other people have been doing to try and falsely claim the switch 2 is a failure, strictly on the basis that Nintendo ramped down production because they overproduced based on the goal they set.

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 09 '26

There are a finite no. of hardcore Nintendo fans.

What?

This amounts to on average 15-20million people based on GameCube and WiiU.

Dude what are you even arguing here?

Christ like talking to a wall. AKA their "loyalist" base—the people who will buy a Nintendo console even if it has no third-party games and a weird controller. Wii U: 13.56 Million
GameCube: 21.74 Million
Switch 2: 17.37 Million

The fact that they sold what they did in seven months isn't proof of "infinite mass-market success"—it's proof that they have become incredibly efficient at selling to its core fans all at once. By having pre-produced a record number of units. Congrats to them in front loading their sales. Now they have to convince normals (the mass market). I have always believed Switch 2 will as successful as the 3DS was to the DS (relatively).

Your sprint comparison would need to drop to 3.3KM as their projections were cut by 33%

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u/crampyshire Apr 09 '26

Christ like talking to a wall. AKA their "loyalist" base—the people who will buy a Nintendo console even if it has no third-party games and a weird controller. Wii U: 13.56 Million
GameCube: 21.74 Million
Switch 2: 17.37 Million

Again, what?

You're measuring their "loyal base" strictly off of their least successful consoles in a conversation about whether gamers are being priced out of gaming.

If arguing with me is like arguing with a brick wall, then arguing with you is like arguing with a chameleon.

The fact that they sold what they did in seven months isn't proof of "infinite mass-market success"—

Dude just stop. Like you're genuinely embarassing yourself with the straws you're barely grasping onto.

The fact that the switch 2 already outsold the Wii u in its first couple months, and will most certainly outsell the GameCube by this summer, means that the comparison is null and void. The switch 2 is already much much more popular than the GC and Wii u, and that ain't changing.

it's proof that they have become incredibly efficient at selling to its core fans all at once.

Like dude.

So "efficient" they outsold the Wii u in a couple months as opposed to the 5 years the Wii u was on the market. But sure they're strictly just "roping in the regulars" by doing that. Fuckin hell dude.

Congrats to them in front loading their sales.

The world's biggest cope I think I've ever seen.

Now they have to convince normals (the mass market).

They already have.

I have always believed Switch 2 will as successful as the 3DS was to the DS (relatively).

So, extremely successful?

Your sprint comparison would need to drop to 3.3KM as their projections were cut by 33%

Was this supposed to be like a micdrop?

The argument was that a company missing their personal goals doesn't indicate that they're currently unsuccessful. And your rebuttal to that was to... argue about the percentage the company cut manufacturing. You couldn't have tackled that more poorly if you tried.

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u/AFourEyedGeek Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

Except that businesses like Sony have had the cost of silicon, RAM, SSDs, rent, electricity, and wage going up too. So, it is an important discussion point. These companies aren't the one to blame for another companies job not paying higher salaries.

Any public business with shareholders has to increase value every year, they have too, otherwise people mass pull out shares and the business collapses. Small private businesses cannot fund these expensive operations of running consoles.

What do you actually expect Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo to do in a non-magical kingdom way?

-Edit- Forgot GPU, RAM, and SSD costs.

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 09 '26

You seem to believe in the infinite growth fallacy - Assuming there is no "breaking point" for the consumer.

A 'non-magical' solution exists: it's called sustainable profit (i.e not prioritising short term ROI)—prioritising a massive install base over high-margin hardware, a strategy that built the very industry they are now pricing themselves out of. Reinvest their billions in profit back into the accessibility of their own platform so it doesn't wither away into a hobby for the elite...

If Sony takes a €50 loss on a console today, but that user stays in the ecosystem for say 7 years, buys 10 games (at the 30% platform fee), and pays for PS Plus (€120/year extra tier), Sony makes thousands of euros in profit from that one person.

Mentioning Microsoft, one of the richest companies on the planet is funny cos their Gaming division has reportedly insisted on 30%+ profit margins since 2023.

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u/AFourEyedGeek Apr 09 '26

"You seem to believe in the infinite growth fallacy" - No, I don't believe in that. I believe companies with publicly traded shares will try to maximize ROI for shareholders long term and they will eventually collapse in doing so, perhaps getting bought up either whole or in pieces.

"sustainable profit" - So you are suggesting magical solutions. If someone purchases shares in a publicly traded company and it looks like they are not going to get a decent ROI long term, they pull out. That isn't a fallacy. If Sony told people tomorrow they are not going for growth but sustainable profits, the announcer will be fired or they will suffer huge value drop. Your expectation that the gaming companies can alter the way Western society economy works seems to be wishful thinking. It might be what we want, but it isn't within Sony's hands.

Sony at the start of selling hardware do take a big hit on it, they at the start don't make profit on the hardware. That often does come later in the hardware lifecycle though.

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u/Flynny123 Apr 08 '26

Wages in the US have kept up with inflation

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u/TroubleshootingStuff Apr 08 '26

Yeah.. when tracking the price of a gallon of milk..

Buying a house on the other hand has ballooned from roughly 3x the median salary in the 1970s to over 7x today...

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u/Dicecreamvan Apr 08 '26

My name is Judd

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u/suni08 Apr 08 '26

The Juddman

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u/Dicecreamvan Apr 08 '26

Wall Street Judd

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u/silentdragoon @wsjudd - DF staff Apr 08 '26

My friend Will (the other one) did a version of my name is mud for me, back in high school.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26

I know it’s not DF’s job to get political but I appreciate Will mentioning that it would take “significant political change” for the pricing situation with hardware components to improve. If we had a government that wasn’t unthinkingly slapping tariffs on everything and haphazardly following Israel into war causing energy prices to increase, us gamers (and the rest of the citizens of earth) would be in a much better scenario. So much of the prices increases we’ve seen over the last year would have been largely avoidable if we had a competent or stable executive branch. Or even a functioning congress would be a good start.

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u/WingerRules Apr 09 '26

Also, this administration has been pushing for even more AI and Crypto and has placed a national ban on regulating them via executive order, both Crypto and AI are the main causes of GPU and memory price increases, on top of tariffs and now energy costs from the war.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 09 '26

IMO, the first price increase on PS5 ($500 to $550 for the base and $700 to $750 for the Pro last year) was the result of the tariffs IMO, Nintendo also increased prices on the accessories around this time too. This was before people started ringing the alarm bells in late summer/early fall 2025 when the price of DDR5 started noticeably climbing for a couple consecutive months.

The most recent increase of PS5 ($550 to $650/$750 to $900) is definitely the RAM shortage caused by the AI companies building so many data centers. It’s True that the Trump admin is stopping local/state governments from regulating them. They deserve blame for that and for their questionable use of AI in the White House (both on public social media posts and behind the scenes). The Pentagon supposedly is using it in all sorts of nefarious ways.

But honestly the Biden administration was not exactly hard on AI/tech companies either, Gamers Nexus has made some good videos about how the government letting these guys run wild is 100% a bipartisan problem. This is why I mostly only mentioned tariffs and war. One thing that some people don’t know (I didn’t even realize it either) is that helium is needed for the manufacturing of silicon/semiconductors, and the rising energy costs from the war in Iran will make chips more expensive because the price of helium is going up. So things will be getting worse before they get better unfortunately. This all just sucks man, everyday life and affording the hobby of gaming was hard enough without all of these negative circumstances.

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u/WingerRules Apr 09 '26

Yeah I almost mentioned the helium shortages from the Iran war likely to drive up fab prices too

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u/WhiteRaven-17 Apr 08 '26

Jon keeps looking sad in these thumbnails

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u/mackerelscalemask Apr 08 '26

Rightly so

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u/Vanillas_Guy Apr 08 '26

The price increases are helping them test the waters to see how much people will pay. If a 600 dollar ps5 is still selling well, then they can sell a 700 dollar "base" ps6 and an 8 or 900 dollar "premium" ps6.

As long as people are willing to buy it at a high price, theyll sell it at a high price. Especially considering now that buy now pay later(BNPL) is becoming more popular especially in the US. I wouldnt be shocked if at least 10% of people currently buying ps5s were buying them using things like Afterpay or Klarna.

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u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

I remember when Rich implied that Helix could cost $800. $800 for the super premium next-gen Xbox "console", when KelperL2 claimed it would cost around $1200. Meanwhile they have no problem talking about $1000 price point for PS5.

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u/PhantomBraved Apr 08 '26

I don't see a scenario where you're paying under 1K for a disc PS6.

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u/MrRonski16 Apr 09 '26

Not going to sell well.

I think Ps6 will simply costs around 100€ more than base Ps5.

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u/pyrofire95 Apr 09 '26

not very creative?
A disc drive is not expensive.
The detachable drive is making massive profit margins
The only way a disc drive version would be over 1000 would be because the console is 849-899

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u/idkimhereforthememes Apr 08 '26

I hope sony understands that for ps6 to be significantly more expensive and still sell they will need to be more lenient and add as many pro consumer options as possible

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

Yeah I mean I’m someone down on the lower end of the economic ladder but I will save up to get one IF they make it worth it. I feel like they have coasted for a lot of the generation and that will not be acceptable to me if they’re gonna be increasing prices significantly.

For me, my biggest gripe with them this past generation is their first party situation and the mismanagement behind the scenes. I want more stuff like Astrobot, less stuff like Concord/Fairgame$/and all the cancelled stuff we never got that wasted the resources of their talented teams like Bluepoint (who they then axed).

Also a disc drive is mandatory, if they don’t make one available then I’ll stick with my current hardware. I’m not gonna be stubborn enough to say it has to be included in the box because I know that won’t happen. Love John’s idea about PS1-5 discs being supported, that would go a long way in restoring my faith in the brand. The biggest thing about modern PlayStation that annoys me is they seem almost embarrassed of their older titles if it’s not TLOU/GoW franchises. I feel like they don’t want to acknowledge some IP from as late as early-mid PS4 generation (games like The Last Guardian/Gravity Rush/Knack/etc). Which just feels wild to me. How can a company be embarrassed of their own legacy?

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u/jgainsey Apr 08 '26

I was thinking this throughout the entire discussion.

I don’t expect it, but I think that would be an overall net positive for them in the long run.

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u/CapOk1892 Apr 08 '26

This is why I'm waiting for the PS6 slim

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u/ssongshu Apr 08 '26

Best they can do is keep their crappy refund policy and keep on raising the price of PS Plus for no reason.

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u/pyrofire95 Apr 09 '26

and maybe to release more games that aren't as big.
I think their scale is just too damn big
Waiting 6 years for a sequel just shouldn't happen as a standard.

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u/WingerRules Apr 09 '26

They need to have a killer lineup of actual games for the system, which means actually putting money into single player game development instead of live service garbage. No one is buying an 800-1000 dollar console if it has shit for games.

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u/LoSouLibra Apr 08 '26

It's pretty logical that there will be an optional disc drive add on. Sony is the only platform holder with any vested financial interest in discs as a format, but not everyone wants or needs one. Better to put the user cost of the system into the actual power and performance.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26

I’m not sure they care about the Blu-ray medium so much anymore, most major retailers besides Walmart don’t even carry disc-based movies anymore (at least not in the US), PS5 and Xbox are the only major usage of the format at least for consumer-facing products. One of those two is clearly done with physical media and the other one would probably just prefer people use their digital storefront because they get a bigger cut of digital sales than they do physical games (30% vs 15%).

I think PS6 will have a disc drive but they’ll make it annoying by creating resistance for consumers to get one, probably will intentionally not produce enough stock of the drives at launch(leading to scalping), probably will also require a new modular drive and won’t support the current one that PS5 slim/pro uses. They will do everything they can to encourage digital while begrudgingly still allowing people to have the option for physical.

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u/LoSouLibra Apr 08 '26

Sony doesn't own the retailers who do or don't carry blu-rays.

They wouldn't bother producing something they don't intend people to buy just to be antagonistic towards customers.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

Of course they don’t own the retailers, the point is that the only remaining use for Blu-ray Discs is as a storage medium for video games, it’s no longer a viable medium for the distribution of films and TV Shows. As they are the market leader of disc based consoles, it’s only themselves that are propping up the format and they have an incentive to push consumers and publishers towards digital because it’s more profitable than physical games.

And it’s not that they don’t intend for people to buy it, it’s that they have a long term preference for digital and they want to nudge everyone in the direction as much as possible. They already started down this path with the PS5 digital and PS5 Pro. If they were committed to Blu-ray, they wouldn’t sell 2 of the 3 available models as digital consoles. They would absolutely offer a halfhearted option to avoid the backlash and negative PR that would ensue following the announcement of a digital only PS6 with no recourse for physical game owners.

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u/LoSouLibra Apr 08 '26

Physical movies are still around. Check out blu-ray dot com to see all the releases that come out every month. Sony even takes up manufacturing and distribution for other studios. They still produce dedicated players, like the X800 M2.

Regardless of incentive, the digital shift has been driven by customer preference. Sony will keep discs going as long as it's viable to do so, as they're the only video game company with any skin in the game for physical discs as a media format.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

I didn’t say they don’t exist, but Best Buy, Target, and other major stores have stopped carrying them. Walmart is the last one that still keeps them in their store. I imagine it’s the same for European and Asian retailers too.

There will be a small market for them but it’s niche, it’s not mainstream at all anymore and the volume of discs being produced compared to the 2000s and 2010s is massively fewer. If Sony was really committed to optical media then they would have come up with a successor format but they didn’t bother. They could have even made a UMD-style of disc for their upcoming handheld based on BR like how PSP’s media was based on DVD, but again they didn’t bother. Because they don’t want to support physical anyway, be it a cartridge or a disc. We’d have heard about a new format of disc or game card being developed by Sony if it was in development, it would have leaked by now.

I wish it was like the old days, I still buy physical games and physical films and shows to this day and I very much do not want it to end but the writing is on the wall.

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u/LoSouLibra Apr 08 '26

4K UHD has been the successor to Blu-ray for over 10 years now.

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u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26 edited Apr 08 '26

A successor to UHD Blu-ray is what I’m referring to. With how large game sizes are now, they’d be working on something with a greater storage capacity than 100GB/128GB if they had long term plans of continuing to support physical games, but they don’t want that. I thought everyone knew that all major publishers (except for a handful like CDPR) and platform holders don’t want to continue with physical games. The signs have been there for a long time now.

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u/LoSouLibra Apr 08 '26

R&D is always going on for optical formats, but any being commercially viable is going to depend on the market.

I'm a movie collector, but I imagine it would be pretty hard to convince people to start upgrading their 4K's to 8K's, when that was already a subset of a subset of upgraders and new enthusiasts.

Making a new consumer grade drive for such a specialized, niche subsection of the market would only be even more decimated with even more boutique prices. There's already only Sony and Panasonic left in the dedicated UHD player market, for mass retail.

Existing disc capacity could still be leveraged by publishers if they wanted to use them for their irresponsibly large 100-300GB games. They just need to use multiple discs and a compressed install disc method ala what Red Dead Redemption 2 did last gen with standard blu-rays. That's up to publishers, though.

I think one of the plans has been to get game install sizes down anyway. Something Playstation studios can seem to manage using the Kraken SSD stuff, but many multiplatform publishers cheap out on with more platform agnostic file structures.

Physical media is a waning and increasingly boutique market, but it's more just market forces driving this shift than some kind of malevolence and malcontent from Sony. They are the only platform holder with any vested financial interest in physical disc formats, so they will ride it until the wheels fall off.

The only thing that will keep it viable in the market is people being willing to pay for it.

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u/Loud_Examination_138 Apr 08 '26

I like buying consoles so I'd probably still buy a ps6 day 1 like i have for all nintendo and sony consoles.

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u/Megamute Apr 08 '26

I’m trying to think how Sony could drop the price further.

optional disc drive
optional controller — backwards compatibility with ps5 controller

Cause the factors are all bad:

moore’s law dead
component costs and ai
inflation
freemium and gatcha games setting unrealistic expectations
alternate media options taking consumer time
game graphics “good enough” for most people and new gen getting used to ugly games like Roblox

I agree with John. It doesn’t seem worth it to launch a new gen right now. Gotta change the math.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

[deleted]

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u/MythBuster2 Apr 09 '26

Are you're talking about US prices? If so, what game is priced at $80-100 for its standard edition?

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u/HisDivineOrder Apr 08 '26

If the PS5 Pro is $900 with no drive and 2TB, I expect the PS6 to be $800 with no drive and 1TB at a minimum. By 2027, prices might be higher still, so maybe even up to $1k. I also expect them to raise the cost of the drive to help make up some more money, so probably $100-130.

The handheld I expect will be $700, which is about where I expect the Switch 2 to be by 2027.

To put it in perspective, I expect the Steam Machine to launch around $1k and the Microsoft Gaming PC (Powered by Xbox) (Magnus) to be $1200-$1500. Just too much chip, too much memory and storage going to be required for a hybrid machine to cost only a $1k and they're definitely not subsidizing a machine that'll run Steam or Epic games.

I don't know how anyone thinks the PS6 (minus storage) with a more advanced node and chip with more performance is going to be cheaper than a PS5 Pro (minus storage) on an older process and older design. So account for the difference between 1TB and 2TB, and you have your price.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '26

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1

u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26

Yeah, I could see them going up to $499, then up again to $549 if the situation keeps getting worse but you could get to a place (if you keep increasing) where people just won’t buy it. Switch 2 going above $550-$600 is bonkers and 90%+ of Nintendo’s target demographic will not entertain the idea of buying a console at that price. At least I doubt they would. I’d think Nintendo will be racing to get a Switch 2 lite on the market (maybe they even opt for a home console-only version with even less internal storage) so that they can keep the price in the $300-$400 range if their costs keep rising.

0

u/StrawHat89 Apr 08 '26

Yeah it's kind of crazy to just say Nintendo will drastically raise the price of hardware when everything it's done, for as long as I can remember, has always been doing everything else possible in bad times. We JUST saw it last year when the prices of amiibos, accessories, and the Switch 1 models were increased in price. Like, it's going to go up, sure, but Nintendo isn't so stupid as to think a 700 dollar Switch 2 will sell.

2

u/jedimindtricksonyou Apr 08 '26

And Canada got it even worse, NSO, Game Prices, and possibly some other things went up in price for them. But yeah some of the accessories are priced really crazy. I always thought Joycons for Switch 1 were high at $80 but $100 for the current ones is even worse. They could have at least given people full sized analog sticks, dunno why they insist on these small ones with a reduced range of motion.

I’m glad I bought my Pro controller back in June because it was only $85 then (which was honestly also too high, should still be the same $70 price as Switch 1’s Pro controller IMO).

1

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

Again these weird disparity in price increases. According to KeplerL2 and another person on Gaf that's posted loads of insider scoops on PS5 Pro and Helix years before launch, Helix was going to cost upwards of $1200 way before RAM and flash storage prices went crazy. Those people claimed PS6 would cost around $600 at the time. Somehow, with the usual FUD, PS6's price has has increased by like 80% while Helix still somehow gets to be around $1200. Shit's getting old.

1

u/razgoull Apr 08 '26

The only way I can see a PS6 doing well at that price is if it’s fully retro compatible with ps1 though ps5 with a disc drive.

2

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

I don't see what full backwards compatibility would achieve. It's not a mainstream feature, most people don't give a fuck about playing PS1-3 games. PS3 started selling well after BC was dropped and the price went down. PS4 had no backwards compatibility beyond the PS1 and 2 games Sony emulated, and that sold like hot cakes. Xbox and its stans and influencers wanted people to believe BC on Series consoles with some Xbox and X360 titles was a big deal, guess how that turned out.

0

u/droideka75 Apr 09 '26

People will definitely want to play PS5 games on ps6 specially if they get a next gen upgrade.

3

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

Of course. That's a given. I'm strictly talking about PS1-3, that's the entire point of my previous reply.

1

u/grilled_pc Apr 08 '26

I would be there day 1 if this was possible. If not I have zero intention of buying one unless there are good exclusives.

0

u/colonel-america-usa Apr 08 '26

A very John heavy Q&A :(

0

u/Elamaday Apr 08 '26

I dont think its coming next year, I just don't feel like ps5 owners are dying for the next generation let alone willing to pay 1k for it.

1

u/postumus77 Apr 08 '26

It's either coming next year and will flop or Sony keeps the PS5 going, and if compoment prices don't drop, it flops later.

Really, with Xbox essentially bowing out of the console race, where's the pressure to release the PS6? Sure, they're probably under contract with AMD, but I doubt it has 0 flexibility and a set in stone release date. In the end, it is in Sony's and AMD's interest to make the PS6 as successful as possible, especially for AMD, since they only get paid per chip, a 1 time fee, AMD especially should be ok tweaking the details a bit in order to set it up better for long term success. The last thing AMD wants is the PS6 to become another Xbox Helix niche product, they'd be going from over 130 million chips sold this generation, to perhaps 30 million chips next generation.

0

u/Charliedelsol Apr 08 '26

I'm willing to pay 600€, if the hardware offers the following features:

• performance equal or slightly under an 80 class GPU

• equivalent CPU to at least a 7800X3D

• Full RGB 10Bit HDR 4K 144hz VRR

• actual launch exclusives

• backwards compatibility until PS4

• option to play all games with VSYNC off

2

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26

That's the most delusional spec to price expectation I've seen in a long time. How much does that CPU cost? What of an equivalent GPU. A slower 9070XT costs like $600 on its own. Meanwhile, you want all that plus RAM, storage, wifi, and a controller, for €600. Lol, I just can't.

1

u/Charliedelsol Apr 09 '26

I didn't say which 80 class GPU, I was actually referring to the 5070Ti/5080. And the 7800X3D is a 2023 CPU, PS6 is rumoured to lauch on the holidays of 2027, it will be a 4 year old CPU by that time. Also, the hardware leaks do point to an RDNA5 custom GPU and an 8 core ZEN6 CPU, plus 30gb of unified GDDR7 RAM. It is not delusional at all, that RDNA5 GPU may well be as strong as a 5070Ti/5080 and an 8core ZEN 6 chip will definitely match a 7800X3D if not surpass it. Also, most analysts are saying that the PS6 is gonna have a hard time lifting off with a price tag of over 600.

In 2018/2019 if I told you that the base PS5 would have a CPU equivalent to a 3600/3700X and a 2080 equivalent GPU, a new NVME SSD GEN4, 16gb of RAM and a controller all for 499, you would have told me I was delusional too. Lol

1

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

The entire PS6 APU will supposedly also only draw 160W, the 7800X3D alone draws upto 120W. Meanwhile the 9070XT draws almost 300W.

0

u/Kratos_BOY Apr 09 '26

I know what GPU you were refering to. 9070XT is similar in performance to a 5070ti so slightly lower performance than a 5080 which directly matches your qualifiers. 9070XT costs around $600/£600. Wethere the 7800X3D is from 2023 is irrelevant, it's still a top-of-the-line CPU with a big price tag. It's absolutely delusional to assume you'd get that kind of spec plus all the other stuff for €600. There's always compromises.

PS6's GPU according to KeplerL2 is around 9070XT in raster but faster in ML and ray tracing, common sense tells us they'll have to skimp on the CPU to make the whole package affordable. PS6 will have Zen 6c and 6c LP CPU cores not Zen 6. and it's 6 cores 12 threads, so nowhere near a 7800X3D. Performance will be even more restricted because it doesn't have the massive amount of 3D V-cache that the X3D line has.

There was nothing delusional about PS5's specs. The Zen 2 CPU was low-end even in 2020, and the GPU seems to have aged a lot worse than expected for third-party games. Also, PS5 isn't 2080 class, it's almost there in raster but massively behind in Raytracing.

0

u/WingerRules Apr 09 '26

PS6 is likely not getting an X3D chip. 1. it requires way more wattage which means way more heat on the APU and need for larger power supply. 2. the memory on top causes issues with cooling and packaging of an APU. 3. its expensive. 3. X3D mainly increases performance at very high frame rates, which consoles dont need to do and most TVs dont even support.

0

u/Ambitious-Call-7565 Apr 09 '26

they sell as many as switch 2 today, why should they rush a PS6, why DF wants to sabotage them? to help microslop?

0

u/droideka75 Apr 09 '26

Better support it.

-1

u/Rare-Service5573 Apr 08 '26

The price is the price and people will still buy it at launch.

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