PlayStation 6 accidentally revealed early via PS5 system update

News of a new PlayStation 5 firmware update seems to imply that previously leaked details regarding the PlayStation 6 may indeed be true, considering certain details in both the leak and the firmware update line up.

Alright, time to put your thinking caps on folks, because we’re going to have to get a little technical to explain how everything here ties together.

So, first, the context. As detailed in an article by Push Square’s Liam Croft, there’s a new PlayStation 5 system update. It’s only available for people who signed up to be part of the PlayStation system updates beta program, so it’s probably not available on your PS5s (yet).

The relevant part detailed in the system update is the new “Power Saver” feature. This feature allows your PS5 “to reduce its power consumption when the feature is enabled”, and will let supported games “scale back performance”.

Sony notes on the PlayStation Blog that the implementation of this feature is part of their “‘Road to Zero’ environmental plan”, but eagle-eyed folks have noticed that this leak seems to partially confirm a different rumour we’ve heard about the PlayStation 6 and the rumoured PlayStation 6 handheld.

As detailed in an article by Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter over on Eurogamer, leaker KelperL2 revealed that a very similar feature would be coming to the PlayStation 5.

Kelper referred to this feature as a “reduced bandwidth” mode, and in practice, it sounds like the exact same thing as the PS5’s Power Saver mode.

Many of you may be familiar with the term “bandwidth” in regards to internet speeds, but in this case, Kelper is referring to hardware bandwidth. It’s essentially the same thing, in that you can, for instance, throttle the bandwidth of a graphics card, so that it doesn’t exceed a certain level of performance.

Now, how does this all tie into the PlayStation 6 and the PlayStation 6 handheld?

As Leadbetter theorised in their piece, the Power Saver/reduced bandwidth mode may indeed have an alternate use: “the implication is that game makers will be able to unify their PS5 game development to support the new handheld and to start work on this sooner rather than later, using existing console dev kits.”

Basically, Sony may be offering the Power Saver option to devs as a way to test their games for the PlayStation 6 handheld.

This would have two benefits. Firstly, the architecture/UI/etc. of the PlayStation 6 handheld may be very similar to the PS5, so devs can test their games for said handheld before Sony starts giving out PS6 handheld dev kits.

Also, it would mean that games designed for the PS6 handheld would be easier to port to the PS5, and vice versa.