Is Sony sacrificing power for portability in the PS6? Everything we’ve heard

Nintendo revealed its Switch 2 earlier in April, and it will officially launch on June 5. The company's newest handheld is estimated to have the graphics power that puts it between a PlayStation 4 Pro and a PlayStation 5.

Sony appears to be looking to go all-in with handheld gaming as well. The company released its PS Portal back in 2023, but that device is only dedicated to streaming games from a PS5 or the cloud. With the PlayStation 6, however, Sony's strategy is to put a lot of power into a handheld console, although it might not be as much as the current PS5.

A known leaker who goes by the name "Kepler_L2" posted on the NeoGAF forums about the upcoming PS6 portable, according to a report from TweakTown. The system-on-chip reportedly being used in the handheld will use 28 to 32 compute units (CU), the processing cores that handle most of the graphics work. This number, if correct, would be lower than the current PS5, which has 36 CUs.

The PS6 will reportedly have a home console version and a handheld version. The console will reportedly have more power than the PS5, but it's unclear by how much.

As for when the PS6 will come out, that is still unknown. Sony hasn't made any official announcement for its next PlayStation, but it's clear that there is work behind the scenes for the upcoming console.

Speculation on the release of the PS6 is 2027 or 2028, which would make sense as Sony has seemingly adopted a seven-year gap between consoles.

The future of gaming is handheld.

Nintendo started the handheld gaming trend when it released the original Switch back in 2017, but it was the release of the Steam Deck in 2022 that really showed what handheld gaming can do. Valve is also already looking to put together its Steam Deck 2.

Since Valve released its Steam Deck, other copycats have come along from tech companies such as MSI, Asus, and Lenovo. These newer handhelds come with more graphics power than the Steam Deck, but they have yet to create the same user experience that comes with a SteamOS handheld. Lenovo realized that and recently came out with its Lenovo Legion Go S, which is the first non-Steam Deck to make use of the Steam OS.

Nintendo apparently understood the importance of the user experience and kept the same Switch layout for the Switch 2.

Microsoft is reportedly working with Asus to deliver a user experience similar to the Xbox. This handheld will not be the next Xbox, which Microsoft already has in production. The next Xbox will be similar to the PS6 in that there will be a home console version as well as a handheld unit.