PS6 Set To Be a Major Shake-Up For Sony

The ex-President of Sony Interactive Entertainment thinks that the company needs to take the PlayStation 6 in a bold, new direction, outright stating that Sony “cannot do the same thing they have been doing” if they want their next generation of hardware to succeed.

Sony is already hard at work on the PlayStation 6. Even though they haven’t officially, directly announced it, they have alluded to their next-gen plans on multiple occasions.

In fact, they’ve been harping on about Project Amethyst, a collaborative effort between AMD and Sony’s PlayStation architect Mark Cerny, with increasing frequency over the past few months, offering us a glimpse into the sort of features and tech we can expect from the PlayStation 6 in the future.

They’ve essentially done everything except announce its release date at this point, which is probably why former PlayStation President Shuhei Yoshida has decided to throw in his two cents on the direction Sony is taking.

Earlier last week, Yoshida appeared on the Skill Up podcast (thank you to Eurogamer for the source) to discuss all things past, current and future PlayStation-related, and, naturally, the topic of the PlayStation 6 arose.

Official PlayStation 5 Pro promo image, Sony

Yoshida has been very vocal about his thoughts surrounding the PlayStation brand since he retired earlier this year, which is why it shouldn’t be too surprising that he was extremely forthcoming regarding Sony’s future.

“Playstation is the most interesting thing because Moore's Law has matured so you don't get as much benefit… Graphics have almost hit to the level that even I cannot tell the difference between some of the graphics capabilities, like ray-traced or not ray-traced, unless it's side-by-side”, Yoshida revealed.

“Clearly [Sony] cannot do the same thing they have been doing, increasing the graphics bar and providing high end experiences. They might just do that, but that feels like a niche audience right now.”

He did state that he obviously has “zero information about their plans” following his retirement, so Yoshida’s comments feel more like a polite warning than an educated guess.

That being said, I think he’s spot on. I think, where graphical capabilities are concerned, the gap between improvements has shortened more and more with each passing generation of hardware. For instance, if you compare the leap between the PS2 and the PS3, the improvement feels massive. If you do so for the PS4 and the PlayStation 5, the diminishing returns suddenly seem quite obvious.

Plus, graphical fidelity has never been the PS5’s problem. I think it’s fair to say that the majority of us would prefer more, less prettier Sony exclusives, as opposed to the noticeably smaller lineup of titles when compared to the PS4.

Hopefully, Sony already knows that a focus on software over hardware is the way to go moving forward, otherwise, at this rate, the PS6 is going to launch with a single game.