Switch 2 is already getting a few "current gen only" games, and the power gap between it and PS5 is about as large as PS6 handheld vs PS6 if the reports are to be believed. Next gen is going to have a strong focus on RayTracing, and we know for a fact that disabling RT features can save a lot of resources. This makes scaling down to the handheld easier.

A GPU bound PS6 exclusive running at native 1080p-1440p (PSSR'd/FSR4'd to 4K) 60fps can theoretically run at 720p (reconstructed to 1080p) 30fps on the handheld with lower settings and some disabled/reduced RT features. CPU bound games are more of a challenge, but it's doable, or they can just be released in a bad shape and hope for the best lol. All consoles have some games than run terribly, expect the PS6 handheld to get more of them.

Watch this:

PS5 version of this "current gen exclusive" is basically 10 times better here (nearly twice the fps, 4x the resolution, and much higher settings), and yet it's more than fine on the Switch 2. RT isn't even a factor here. Disabling a RT feature or two should save extra resources for the PS6 handheld to play with. It'll depend on the game.

The PS6 handheld might be a lot better suited than PS5 for RT, RAM capacity, ML heavy games, which may be the focus of nextgen's more demanding games.

The rumors put the PS6 above 5070ti and potentially 5080 in some tasks. Kepler said RDNA5 feature set will exceed Blackwell's, let alone Lovelace's. Why you already downplaying bro? lol.

Ai features will be in the the portable PS6 but not the PS5.

I'd say 98% of games in year 1 & 2 will be on PS5. Maybe 90% year 3, 70% Year 4....

Essentially PS5 is being supported by most games into the 2030. In particular I think games using AI NPC features (smaller /experimental titles) will be the first to be exclusive. AAA will not utilize it much outside of RT and upscaling until some years down the line. 1st party will use it more inventively but I think for any full production game they'll also make a PS5 port not dependant on real time ai

"All that new tech" is a game changer.

I don't believe we will be in an era of 4k 60fps next gen, we are talking about consoles here, not high-end PC's.

my prediction is similar to yours, however, it will be intended to replace the ps5.

basically what will happen is that sony and microsoft will make new hardware but they will have zero exclusives. their studios themselves will develop games to be on both platforms. so basically you are going to have to consoles that are basically the same thing aside from the ui. that is the brave new world we are going to enter.

Just look at Borderlands 4 and Elden Ring on Switch 2. It's already struggling to produce an experience that's half as good as XBSS and it costs 450$. That's how hard it is to produce a console quality experience on a Handheld. The absolute best Sony could do for 500$ is have the handheld match PS5 performance, and that is including all the added AI and other tech. 

Your saying the new tech is a game changer but then also saying 4k 60 is impossible because it's just a console? Well, I meant 4k using FSR4 so that will be easily doable. 

You contradict yourself somewhat. Your saying you think they intend for it to replace PS5 but won't develop any exclusive games for it? Well, if Sony intended for it to replace the PS6 surely they'd develop some exclusives to showcase the reason as to why you should upgrade? 

Switch 2 comes fairly close effectively to Series S thanks to the more advanced feature set. Street Fighter 6 and Star Wars Outlaws are two highlights, but the lowlights are okay-ish as well.

As long as the PS6 handheld can reach like one tenth of PS6's power, it should be able to run most PS6 games without much trouble. Yes there will be games that won't run well enough on it but as I said earlier that's normal and can happen to any weaker system. If that's a deal-breaker to me, I can just ignore the handheld and get something more powerful. It'll no doubt get its fair share of crappy ports like Elden Ring Switch 2 is supposed to be, but so what? How is it a big deal? The PS6 handheld will be dwarfed in sales by the home console SKU anyway.

Well the series x is the replacement for the one, right? It has no exclusives and it has still replaced it. Same thing will happen here. 

The report that I had read from a good tech message board is around a 4080, but it's not like there's a huge difference between a 4080 and a 5070 anyway. 

By late 2027 that won't be the latest and greatest as the 60 series will be out and 70 series will be about to release. 

It doesn't really matter anyway, the pertinent take away is actually the PS6 Portable thing, that device being sub-PS5 will basically hold developers to make all games to that spec anyway (just like XBox Series S). 

That device likely is going to sell better than the Series S, so it will get support, developers are not going to want to miss out on potential extra sales, so that already cuts the knees off next-gen anyway. 

Console generations as we knew them are basically over I think. On top of the technical issues, developers can't even manage PS5 workflows, there's no budget or time to do something like "hey lets double the budget and double the development time". $500 million games that take 10-12 years to produce is the death knell of the industry. 

Sony knows this full well too, that's why they are OK with releasing a PS6 Portable knowing it will knee cap software development. They know they can't just keep chasing the "2x! 3x! 5x better graphics!" ... developers are worn out and at their breaking point as is, even their own internal developers. 

We're headed towards a future where forget about the budget being north of $300-$400 milion for a game, we're going to a place where a game that starts development even before a hardware generation starts may not even release during that hardware generation ... lmao. Like games could easily take 8-10 years to finish the way we are going. PS5 is going to be the baseline for development for a long, long time. 

The days of console generational shifts like Super NES to N64, PS1 to PS2, even N64 to Dreamcast I think are over. It's not sustainable and I think even as is, without the PS6 being cutting edge, it's still going to be fairly expensive ($600-$700+). Days of cheap hardware that went down in price and massive performance jumps every 3-5 years like clockwork ... yeah that time has passed. If you missed the 90s and 2000s I guess tough for you, you'll never know what that was like. 

Consoles are never going to match contemporary highend PC's. So obviously it won't be cutting edge by PC standards, but hopefully it's good for the price.

PS6 handheld isn't going to hold back anything until maybe after the PS7 is out. PS5 was launched as a powerful and cheap console in 2020 without a weaker version to potentially hold it back, and yet we all know how that ended up. Developers aren't going to design around PS6 specs or even PS6 handheld specs. They will typically design their games to work on weaker systems than the PS6 handheld and scale/soup up. PS6 handheld is taking advantage of market realities beyond Sony's or anyone's control.

What held back the PS5 in most cases wasn't the Seires S. It was the PS4/Xbox One, or more accurately: "market realities like diminishing returns, rising prices, and development times/costs".

The few developers who found it challenging to develop for the Series S chose to delay their games on Xbox for optimization, or skipped it altogether. The most troubling aspect about the Series S was the limited RAM which even the Switch 2 exceeded.

As you said, generations as we once knew them are dead, and this isn't something that an ultra powerful PS6 can change. Marvel Rivals just got announced for the PS4 lmao. PS6 will be held back no matter what. The base spec for most developers will gradually go down, and one day modern AAA games will be scalable to mid-range mobile phones. On the plus side, RayTracing, AI, and technologies like Nanite will be able to make "scalable" games look quite amazing on highend hardware at relatively cheap costs.