Last week, following an in-depth analysis of the PlayStation 6 bill of materials and potential pricing , speculation about a PlayStation 6 "lite" model powered by the APU of the Canis handheld began circulating. Some suggested this model could launch at a lower price than both the home and portable consoles. However, the chances of this happening are nonexistent , as such a model would be a “nightmare” for developers, according to what AMD leaker KeplerL2 said on the

After reacting positively to a post from another user who highlighted how the existence of this third PlayStation 6 model is a complete fabrication, the to a user asking if this model is possible. “No, it would be a nightmare for devs . "

“How so if the handheld already exists?” asked user kevboard. “Making something look good on a small 1080p screen is very different from making it look good on a large 4K TV. We also still don't know if Sony will mandate Handheld support,”

In addition, the Canis APU that powers the handheld is built with . It “can't run at high clock speeds no matter how much power you throw at it,” so using it to power a home system with an expectation of 4K resolution output would be a terrible idea.

Upscaling would be of little help. Upscaling from 1080p to 4K resolution is a “16x upscale which is very hard to do without image artifacts/blur. Upscale cost is also based on output resolution, so if we assume 1080p upscale FSR5/PSSR3 is around 2ms on Canis then 4K upscale would be about 8ms. Even with higher clocks from a docked configuration it's likely 5-6ms minimum, so devs would need to do extra optimization for docked config just to hit the same FPS as handheld mode,” the leaker

Although this PlayStation 6 "lite" model based on the handheld APU is highly unlikely to ever launch, a lower-end SKU could still be possible. However, KeplerL2 it would make sense to use the Orion APU powering the home console with a slightly different configuration:

• 6-core CPU cluster
• 16 WGP GPU
• -10% clock speed on CPU/GPU
• 128-bit bus with 24GB RAM

This configuration would reduce the bill of materials (BOM) by $60 for the RAM, plus another $20-30 for the reduced board/cooling requirements. “Shrinking the SSD to 512GB would be another big BOM reduction, but I think they could only get away with that if they forced devs to use NTC,” said the leaker.

As things stand, the PlayStation 6 handheld is set to be the cheaper gateway to the next-generation of console gaming , although with uncertainty regarding mandatory support, it remains to be seen how Sony will handle its next-generation systems and if the company will manage to keep the price of the home system in the $700 range.

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