The PlayStation 6 hasn't even been announced yet, but little rumors pop up now and then that add speculation on what to expect from Sony's next-gen console. The latest is a shocking claim that the RAM and storage configuration of the console will cost more than the entirety of the PS5.
Today's rumor comes via a long thread about next-gen hardware on NeoGaf, where known leaker Kepler_L2 simply said: "RAM + NAND alone is over $680." This was in response to another commenter who optimistically hoped that the console would come in at around $680. But, if Kepler_L2's numbers are right, and you should take them with a grain of salt, there's little chance of that happening.
This isn't the first time that Kepler_L2 has shared the leaked manufacturing cost of the PS6. Back in March, elsewhere on NeoGaf, they suggested the BoM (Bill of Materials) for the PS6 would be $760. But, due to the ongoing RAM crisis, they amended that estimate by saying the cost has gone up by around $200 in June. That would leave an estimated BoM of $960, which doesn't take into consideration additional costs like R&D, marketing and shipping. Keep in mind, though, that Sony has yet to say anything official about the price of PS6.
However, while the presumed cost of the RAM and SSD are high, the rest of the console's hardware could be quite expensive, too. All of this speculation happened in a thread responding to previous speculation from Kepler_L2 that the PS6 would have a GPU with around 40 teraflops of compute performance, and Project Helix would be around 56 teraflops. Now, teraflops isn't the best predictor of gaming performance, but if these numbers are accurate, it would mean that the PS6 would be a little more than twice as powerful as the PS5 Pro, with a GPU that's roughly between the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT.
For reference, the Radeon RX 9070 costs around $900 right now, due to ongoing price increases, but even at launch it was still a $549 part. Part of that cost is made up of the VRAM, which would be accounted for in Kepler_L2's $680 figure, but the GPU itself is still a huge portion of the cost. Sony would likely get a discount for buying in bulk, but the chips powering the PS6 are probably still going to add a couple hundred dollars to the equation.
I wouldn't be surprised, then, if the total cost of manufacturing the PS6 crosses the $1,000 or $1,100 mark. Sony has already suggested it won't sell the PS6 at a "significant" loss, so I doubt the company is going to slash hundreds of dollars off the price to move more consoles. So, if these leaked prices are accurate, I don't really see a world where the next-generation PlayStation sneaks in under $1,000, and we'd be lucky if we get it for under $1,200. I hope I'm wrong, though, I really do.
But even though the PS6 is likely going to be very expensive, the company has been working overtime filing patents for some wild technology that may find its way into the PS6. Just last week, Sony filed a patent with its own take on frame generation, and before that filed another patent that would let games use player behavior to train NPCs.
The company has also patented a technology that would turn your controller into an NFC card reader, and would use an AI agent to watch your console for hardware flaws, and deploy vibe-coded patches to fix problems before you even notice them.
But don't hold your breath on a release date for the PS6. Following Sony’s shock decision to kill video game discs on PlayStation consoles from January 2028, analysts predicted 2028 at the earliest, potentially the end of 2028.