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[Mr.Phoenix]

In this case, the ps6 will be severely gimped if a handheld less powerful than a ps5 can play its games ; and Sony may have a hard time justifying not releasing those games on ps5 as well.

Oh I believe pretty much every PS6 game... or at least over 90% of them will also be available on the PS5. Even if it means them running at 720p and being upscaled to 1080p at 30fps.

And the PS6 won't be gimped, I mean look at RE9... its also on the switch, and thats not even as powerful as what a PS6 handheld would be. Are you calling that game gimped? Scalability is key, you will be surpised what you can accomplish if you only have to worry about an 8ish inch screen and running games at 540p or less natively and upscaling it to 1080p and at 30-40fps.

 

[Astray]

If Switch 2 is anything like the original, it's set to sail well into the PS6 generation.

Yeah by the time next gen rolls in it's gonna be the lowest-powered current-gen alternative.

But this time the bottleneck won't be RAM (Switch 2 has 16GB iirc), but it will be CPU.

 

[ergem]

If any, it will be this:

Based on reports from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) and supporting leaks, the PlayStation 6 (PS6) ecosystem is rumored to launch around late 2027 to early 2028 with three distinct hardware versions.

PS6S "Lite" (Affordable Model):

• Purpose: An affordable, lower-spec model similar to the Xbox Series S, meant to serve as an entry-level option into the PS6 ecosystem.
• Specs: Uses the same "Canis" APU as the handheld, likely with performance constraints similar to the handheld's docked mode.
• Price: Estimated at $299–$399.

I support this. It would be a masterstroke if it will be subsidized at $399. They just need to ensure that RAM will not be constrained to let PS6 games ported on it easily.

And then make it slim enough to allow a modular approach to PS6 portable. PS Portal 2 could act as its housing for screen, battery and control.

Pic is bad but imagine it looking like PS Portal with a latch at the back.

 

[ergem]

For gen of Series S (gen 9), main changes are: better CPU, larger GPU and faster I/O, but it has fatal hardware design issue, separated different speed memory pool, if it's a unified 12gb ram, it would have less issue than it has now.

Switch 2 maybe (if you regard it as gen 10), if we do not include nintendo, for the next gen, imo, i don't really just take the raw power of PS6 handheld (~0.5 PS5) as a main factor, but all its next gen features sets just make it not a series s if you consider how ML grapchial technologies now define the video-game visuals:

• ML based PSSR (more sharper image by less rendered pixels, 540p->1080p for handheld)
• PSFR( PlayStaion Spectral frame-gen, make a game render at 40 fps~60 fps to target 120 fps),
• universal compression (better bandwidth, I/O speed and power efficiency)
• next gen raytracing cores (the handhled is still 2~3x PS raytracing power, better UE5 lumen support),
• better nanite support (hardware support take less CPU/GPU power)
• AMD&Sony version neural rendering support is also next gen exclusive features, and the big ram & AI power (TOPS in int8, FP8, FP16 and e.t.c.) to make game design involved with more vivid NPC and world generation possiable.

So in the end it depends the game development pipeline,

• 3rd parties and 1st party multi-players games will have way longer cross-gen, 3rd parties need consider the huge and various PC hardware, they need some legecy solution for raytrcing, texture quality, asset quality, lod and e.t.c.
• 1st party SP games of the first couple years will mostly be cross-gen titles and there will be some next gen only titles, when 1st party developers fully drop baken lighting to full use RTGI, use ML graphical technologies in their development and optimizations to make game development faster and more economic, leave more efforts and time on gameplay and stories, then it will dorp last gen.

P.S.: Let's look what "Road to PS6 family" next year will tell us about the next-gen game development pipeline, we may got a lot of ML-related stuffs and see examples how these next-gen feature become part of game development and game design

This is what I'm thinking as well. PS5 will be dropped not because it cannot run the next-gen games anymore (PS6 lite is supposed to be weaker in rasterization), but because the game development pipeline with the PS6 family of devices is streamlined with ML and RT (and RAM considerations too) that porting to PS5 will be a lot of extra work. That, and the fact that PS6 family of devices has attained 60M sold milestone that Sony and 3rd parties can afford to drop last-gen PS5. Perhaps by 2032, games will start dropping last-gen and simply release in PS6 family of devices.

If Sony will subsidize a PS6 lite at $399, it will be a masterstroke.

 

[HYDE]

Your Mom.

 

[xanaum]

There won't be a Series S next gen, no more weak console holding back more ambitious games and delaying releases. At least I hope so, unless they keep insisting on the Switch 2 as something viable for next-gen ports, but the way things are going right now, I doubt it.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Yeah by the time next gen rolls in it's gonna be the lowest-powered current-gen alternative.

But this time the bottleneck won't be RAM (Switch 2 has 16GB iirc), but it will be CPU.

Switch 2 has 12 gb. Its pretty close to Series S.

PS6 Portable will likely get 16 gb.

 

[Thanati]

Hopefully nothing.

 

[Stuart360]

A better question for me is which device is going to be blamed for 'holding back next gen games' like the Series S was blamed for the whole gen?.
It should really be the PS6 portable assuming it is considerably less powerful than the main PS6 and Xbox, but as its a Sony machine it will be a 'different situation' compared to the S for some reason.
Which only leaves the Switch 2 left to blame.
Saddle up Nintendo fans!.

 

[Exede]

The Switch 2