The recent PS5 price increase has shifted attention toward its successor, even though there is still no official information on when PlayStation 6 will launch or what it will look like. Even so, that has not stopped speculation about its possible price. Realistically, with current price hikes it is hard to imagine it costing less than $900, which is the current price of the PS5 Pro, although estimated production costs suggest that this could still be possible. That said, the final price could still change significantly before launch.
In any case, Sony may be looking at ways to reduce costs, even if that means lowering storage space and removing the disc drive, according to insider KeplerL2. On NeoGAF, the insider addressed two of the biggest questions surrounding the PS6, namely how much SSD storage it will have and whether it will include a disc drive like the original PS5 model. According to KeplerL2, the SSD will not exceed 1TB in capacity. While this may sound worrying given how limited that space can be especially with newer games, the insider also gave an explanation.
According to him, if the PS6 development kit supports neural texture compression, storage space may not be a major issue, since games would take up less space than they currently do on PS5. Even so, we all know how quickly 1TB can fill up. The PS5 Pro offers twice as much storage with 2TB, and it may also share another feature with the next PlayStation, which is having no disc drive. With less storage space and no disc drive, KeplerL2 believes Sony could lower the price of the PS6.
This may be disappointing news for fans who prefer physical games, but discs are becoming less common and could eventually become a thing of the past as publishers shift to digital distribution. However, one big question still remains: if the PS6 is backward compatible, will it support the detachable PS5 disc drive, or perhaps a new drive made for the next generation to run physical PS5 and PS4 games? Only time will tell.
It is also worth noting that, while KeplerL2 has a strong track record and correctly predicted several PS5 Pro developments tied to AMD’s RDNA architecture, nothing has been officially confirmed yet, so this should still be taken with a pinch of salt. As more news and rumors emerge, we’ll make sure to keep you updated here at GameObserver.
