~ 9060XT 16GB

Currently, if something like 5600X is used (which is more than enough to easily beat PS5 Pro's CPU), 9060XT based PC, with 16GB DDR4 and 2TB NVME (with equivalent PS5 Pro speed) is somewhat under $1200. No gamepad and OS though (KB+M included).

I think this tells us a lot about the price of PS6, sure Sony can subsidize it somewhat but its specs will be so much better than the Steam Machine that Sony would need to aggressively subsidize it just to get it to a $1000 price point.

Is it even worth for these companies to launch new machines in this climate? I think Sony should hold back the PS6 for now. We haven't gotten the most out of the PS5 yet, let alone the Pro. So why give us the next iteration at a price most people ar not willing or able to pay?
Or maybe the situation will never get better, we just have to accept these hardware prices until the next world.

The PS6 will be a range of hardware (two or more at launch) and be priced between PS5 and PS5 Pro. SteamMachine and prebuilt PC's aren't indicative of console prices.

I saw some tests, it runs modern games great at 1440p and high settings. I like the design and it has custom plates. But yes for that price I would rather build a custom PC, I mean when the prices were still normal.

People talking about the PS6 price.

The digital PS5, that just got a big price increase, costs $600 right now. With Sony not caring to sell it nearly as much as they would need to for a new system. They already sold about 100M PS5 and have a large customer base to make money from.

The Steam Machine 2 releasing 6 years later with a very similar performing hardware, same ammount of RAM and actually less storage space (which are the 2 things that costs the most by far during this AI mess) costs $1130.

Sony has, right now, a slight better performing game machine, with more storage space, for about half the price of the Steam Deck 2.

Sony and Valve are not remotely similar cases on how to expect the pricing of a gaming machine.

We all know the PS6 will be affected by this price inflation as it has happened to the PS5 more than once, the worst of which literally just happened 2 months ago. But there is no realm of comparison for the PS6 pricing based on what the SM2 costs, and what amount both companies need make those sell to customers, again, Valve is releasing a slight worse performing product 6 years after Sony released the PS5 and it costs about the double it.

PS6 will be expensive, and it will not release in 2027, but unless the prices keep increasing even more until mid to late 2028, in which case the SM2 would be crossing $1500 by then, we should not expect it to cost $1000. Sony can't go on selling a $1000 PS6 to 15M people, they need it to aim it for 100M instead, they depend on the machine reaching mass adoption.

You can expect more gradual and constant PS+ increases, big PS6 games (or even late big PS5 games) price raising to $80, but you should not expect a $1000 PS6 release.

If it does happen, it's because tech prices simply didn't stop increasing rapidly for the next 18 months, not based on what a $1130 Steam Machine price is in mid 2026.

The main problem if you will is that pretty much everyone forecast hardware prices to continue to rise 2027-2028, it seems most people only expect the prices to decrease around 2029-2030, if that is the case then Sony will launch the PS6 at a time when components will cost even more than they do now.

Series S was more powerful than One X and packed an ultra fast SSD vs One X's ancient HDD, and yet it cost almost half as much at launch.

PS5 is many times more powetful than a One X, with a blisteringly fast SSD and storage system, and yet it retailed at the same price and made profit a few months into the generation. Xbox never made profit from hardware at that point.

The Switch 2 is effectively twice or more as poweful as a SteamDeck, and yet it's a lot cheaper. Does this mean Nintendo has to sell at $800 to make profit? lol.

Sony is now deeply involved with AMD in their chip designs, can get lower prices than virtually anyone in the business, and might be able to work something out with cheap Chinese RAM manufacturers to mitigate the problem. Positioning the PS6 as a mass market product enables them to sell at a moderate loss (vs minor profit on PS5 Pro), and they can reduce the storage from 2TB to 1TB or less which would save a ton of money. If a 2021 PS5 can be much more poweful than a One X and be sold at the same price (or a $100 lower with Digital Edition), then the same may happen again between PS5 Pro and PS6.

The price gap between PC and console hardware is obviously widening due in part to system RAM.