Conversation around the next generation of hardware has been dialling up a lot recently, with rumours swirling about the next moves for PlayStation and Xbox in the wake of the announcement of the Steam Machine.
Valve has confirmed that the Steam Machine will be priced much more like a gaming PC than a home console, which will likely mean that consumers are looking at something around £700+ when it is eventually released.
Meanwhile, Xbox has made no secret about the fact that they have been working towards greater integration with PC as a platform. Game Pass has been a big part of that, but there are continued mutterings that the company's next hardware release may be targeted towards the premium market, doubling the price of the consoles they have put out traditionally.
That manoeuvring has left PlayStation in an interesting position, and one that could see them become even more dominant by the time the PS6 rolls around.
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The PS6 Could Find Itself With Little Competition
Xbox and PlayStation have been direct sparring partners for two decades now, as they sought to gain an advantage over one another in the regions where they were on sale.
Aside from the Xbox 360 era (and fair play to Microsoft, that was an unbelievable console), Sony has managed to dominate sales for the most part, particularly in Japan where the Xbox remains a bit of a minnow.
With Xbox now seemingly moving their plans away from a traditionally priced console, PlayStation finds themselves in an unbelievable position without really having to do anything at all.
Assuming they follow a similar structure to their current system this time around, the company can have two consoles out that serve as the only available pieces of hardware at their price point.
Even if they have a PS6 Pro that retails for anything between £600-700, that's still likely to be a fair bit cheaper than they Steam Machine, likely with similar or even better performance (based on the current specs of the PS5 Pro).
The only possible spanner in the works for Sony is the state of the components market and the ever-increasing price of critical parts like RAM.
If they can't get a ton through the door at a reasonable price, they may be forced to raise their own RRP.
Fortunately, the company isn't planning to release a new console until at least 2028, or even 2029, so hopefully the price of parts will have normalised a little by then and we can all get reasonably priced consoles.
Topics: PlayStation, Xbox