I think I know what PS6 and Xbox is planning for the next gen – Reader’s Feature

With Sony and Microsoft dropping hints as to their plans for the PS6 and Project Helix, a reader believes he’s already worked out their secrets.

Although everyone else is obsessed with GTA 6 at the moment (I get it, but it’s just not my thing) I’m more interested in trying to figure out what Sony and Microsoft are planning for the next generation. We have had lots of clues and the biggest came this week when Microsoft admitted that Project Helix is more than just one console.

It’s very hard to understand why Microsoft would make a new console at all, given the last two have sold so little, but they’ve gone on about it so much it would absolute sink any last bit of respect anyone had for Xbox if they cancelled it now.

If they were a normal company they absolutely would but they’re so rich nothing really matters to them. I’m not too interested in Xbox myself, but what does interest me is that their plan for the next gen seems to be very similar to Sony, with both planning multiple devices, one of which is a portable.

I admit nothing is confirmed but Sony and Microsoft have both dropped enough hints about a portable that there doesn’t seem to be any reason to doubt they’re making one. The question is why? Obviously the Switch 1 and 2 are popular but to make a portable or hybrid console that was more powerful than the PlayStation 5 (i.e. the PlayStation 6) would make it ridiculously expensive.

So the portables can’t be next gen, they must be based on current gen tech or earlier. Which makes perfect sense when you remember Sony has a weird tech that downscales the graphics in a game in order to ‘save power.’ Which is obviously not what it’s for at all. It’s blatantly for some sort of handheld that’s going to be a bit less powerful than a PlayStation 5 but can still play its games.

That’s a plan that makes some sort of sense, although it’s still going to be very expensive, probably not much less than a standard PlayStation 5. But it’s also not really a PlayStation 6, so what must be happening is that both Sony and Microsoft are planning a hyper expensive next gen console, that’s going to be a grand or more – just as already predicted – but I would guess that it won’t have any exclusives.

Instead, everything will work on a PlayStation 5 and that means the current console, the portable, and the PlayStation 6. Microsoft implied even more devices than two but I’m not sure what that could mean, other than something halfway between the two, that’s inspired by the Xbox Series S.

The end result is that there isn’t really going to be a next gen at all. There’s just going to be what we’ve already got repackaged into portable form and what will basically be a Super PS5 Pro. But they’ll still all play the same games.

It’s kind of an acknowledgement that there doesn’t need to be a next gen, but Sony and Microsoft need to sell hardware, so they’ve got to come up with some reason for you to part with your money.

I just don’t see it working though. I’m sure there’ll be a small minority that want the most powerful console, or a portable version of the PlayStation 5, but not many normal people. Not given what they’re going to have to cost, thanks to the component crisis.

What we need right now is for consoles to get cheaper (and making games to get cheaper) but even this half-generation move forward is still just going to end up with higher price tags and less ordinary people owning consoles.

The only hope, as I see it, is to have a console that is cheaper than the PlayStation 5. Perhaps that is part of the plan, but if it is it’s the only thing they haven’t hinted at yet. I will say this though, if their only plan is to sell even more expensive consoles then that’s not going to work for a second. And I can’t believe they don’t realise that.

By reader Cranston

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