Under the current market conditions with high prices for components such as RAM that show no signs of abating for a few more years, the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Project Helix are set to become the most expensive gaming systems ever released. In Sony's camp, however, the rumored handheld is a glimmer of hope, as it could offer an affordable entry point into the next generation of consoles. However, this may not be the case, as well-known AMD leaker Kepler_L2 suggested a price below $600 could be impossible.
"$600 is definitely not possible right now," the leaker said on the NeoGAF forums in response to another user's question about LPDDR5X memory (the dominant standard for most consumer devices) prices. "LPDDR memory is actually seeing the biggest price increases since it's being used in a lot of datacenter products." So, heavy adoption of AI is once again the main reason why gaming hardware and consumer hardware in general are becoming unaffordable for many.
With the PlayStation 6 handheld's price potentially higher than most expected, the current-generation PlayStation 5 is set to remain the gaming system of choice for many. Although the system's price was increased this year , another price increase is thankfully unlikely in the near term.
Kepler_L2 briefly touched upon the possible consequences of the current prices of GDDR6 , which have forced AMD to increase the prices of the Radeon RX 9000 GPU series for the PS5 , and there should be no cause for concern.
"Sony CFO made a comment earlier in the year that they secured enough supply for 2026 sales, while AMD tends to buy memory only for the next quarter," the leaker said .
However, the situation remains challenging. "RAM prices fluctuate a lot right now and idk how good of a contract Sony managed to get so it's hard to say, but they are most likely selling at/near cost," Kepler_L2 said . As such, to avoid raising prices again in the future, Sony may have to monetize current users by increasing prices for games and PlayStation Plus subscriptions, which would further sour the company's perception, even before the sunset of disc production by 2028.
As Sony has yet to decide when to release the PlayStation 6 , there's no way to predict how much the next-generation systems will cost. If they do end up costing $1000 or above, Alinea Analytics believes it would risk driving away four in ten buyers . With options being so limited for manufacturers, we could be looking at the longest cross-generation period of all time.
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