The days of consoles getting substantially cheaper to produce the further into the lifecycle we get are over. As part of a new PlayStation financial presentation, PlayStation chairman Hiroki Totoki noted that compared to previous generations, it's increasingly more challenging to grow profits for the PlayStation 5 - one of the reasons being the price of components.
As summarized by insiders @Genki_JPN and @Kepler_L2 on X, costs relating to die shrinks and production of the complex chips and hardware found in consoles like the PlayStation 5 have remained flat - in that there's no way to create a more efficient and cost-effective console.
Usually, in the second half of a console's lifecycle, cheaper parts and more efficient nodes lead to more affordable consoles and increased hardware sales and profits. This is no longer the case and will most likely be the new norm in the lead-up to the PlayStation 6.
The PlayStation 5 launch happened amid a global chip shortage, and with production costs rising in a post-pandemic world, it became the first PlayStation console to get a post-launch price increase in many countries. What does this mean for something like the PS6? According to @Kepler_L2, a trusted source for all GPU-related news, we could be looking at even higher console prices or 'increasingly smaller performance gains.'
To boost PlayStation profits, Sony will release more games more often on PC, like the recent smash Helldivers 2, image credit: Sony.
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The latter is probably unlikely, as Microsoft recently boasted that its next-gen Xbox will present the 'largest technical leap' in console history. On the Sony front, the PlayStation 6 is rumored to feature cutting-edge AI hardware to boost visual fidelity and support path tracing - so odds are it will be powerful.
For those waiting for an eventual PS5 price drop, that might not happen for a while. Or at all. As part of its financial earnings report and call, Hiroki Totoki noted that Sony will aggressively bring more titles to other platforms to boost profits. This probably means that day and date PC releases could be on the cards for future entries in popular franchises like God of War, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us. Recently, Sony found massive success with the release of Helldivers 2 on PS5 and PC, with the multiplayer co-op action game being a smash hit on both platforms.
