The price of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s next-gen console, the PS6, may be close to half of the price of the next-gen Xbox, based on a new rumor.
Known hardware insider Kepler_L2 took to Twitter/X to respond to a question regarding the price of the PS6 in comparison to that of the next-gen Xbox. The question came after Xbox President Sarah Bond mentioned during a recent interview that the company’s next console will be a “very premium, very high-end curated experience.” The insider estimates that the PS6 will retail for around 600 US Dollars while the next-gen Xbox, allegedly codenamed Magnus, will sell for 1,200 US Dollars, twice the price of Sony’s next-gen console.
The insider further elaborated that Xbox Magnus will have around 42% more silicon, 20% more memory, and higher board/cooling costs than the PS6. In addition, they mentioned that Microsoft will not be able to subsidize the hardware via software due to its decision to support third-party stores like Steam, resulting in a higher price for its next-gen console.
It’s unclear whether the insider’s estimated price of 600 US Dollars for the PS6 includes a disc drive. Sony Interactive Entertainment may opt to offer two SKUs as it did with the PS5 or go the PS5 Pro route and make the disc drive entirely optional. We’re inclined to believe that the estimated price of the PS6 is based on a scenario where the PS6’s disc drive will be an optional add-on.
In a series of recent posts on the NeoGAF forums, the same insider claimed that the hardware specs for the PS6 have been finalized. According to them, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s next-gen console will not be able to match Xbox Magnus in terms of specs, as it will have fewer CPU cores, lower CPU frequency, fewer Compute Units, fewer ROPs, lower GPU frequency, less cache and memory bandwidth. Additionally, they mentioned that the PS6 will come with 30 GB of RAM, its handheld variant will have 24 GB, while Xbox Magnus will feature 36 GB, giving Microsoft’s console an advantage across “100% of games.”
