Great quote: Typically, consoles get cheaper as they age, but the cheapest PS5 now costs $200 more than it did at launch. Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden believes that fixing this issue would mean more to gamers than a faster PS6. “I think we have enough power in the machine,” he said. “The innovation doesn’t have to be making a PS6 for $1,200, but rather making another PS5 for $300. That would be real innovation.”
Layden made the case on a recent episode of The Trophy Room podcast. He ran PlayStation’s US operations and later its global studios before leaving Sony in 2019, so he’s seen a few console generations from the inside.
The PS5 has now gone in the other direction. “This is the first platform I’ve seen that has increased in price over time,” Layden said. Since April, a standard model has cost $649 in the US. Even the Digital Edition is now $599, up from $399 at launch. That’s largely because AI data centers suck up the memory chips that consoles rely on.
Layden argues that these prices exclude buyers who typically get in late in a generation when hardware gets cheaper. Console sales in the US have already slowed as prices also rise.
Older generations also brought improvements that people could immediately see, he added. The jump from PS1 to PS2 is “unbelievable”, as is the change from CDs to DVDs. Even the PS4 came fully connected for just $399. But the PS6’s rumored upgrades largely amount to more ray tracing and more teraflops – gains that he doesn’t think the average gamer would really notice.
That’s why he’d rather Sony stop chasing specs altogether. “What the company needs to do is do what it has never done, which is not iterate the console,” he said. “Make it smaller, make it cheaper and do everything you can.”
Sony has actually already tried out the first part. The slimmer PS5, which launched in late 2023, was more than 30% smaller than the original. But neither model got cheaper – the Digital Edition actually went up $50 to $449. In comparison, the PS3 Slim and PS4 Slim cost $299 each.
Layden also believes that Sony would have a “good chance” of winning with a PS6 handheld, but only if a home console doesn’t come onto the market at the same time.
Sony, for its part, still hasn’t agreed on a price or launch date for the PS6, so the $1,200 figure is just Layden’s own hypothesis. CEO Hiroki Totoki has also warned that memory prices are likely to remain very high through fiscal 2027. That probably makes it a challenge to even keep PS5 prices stable, let alone get them down to $300.
