Sony’s CEO Hiroki Totoki has reiterated the fact that PlayStation 6’s launch date remains up in the air.
He confirmed the ongoing delay during an interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which journalist Jason Douglas writes: “Totoki said the company still hasn’t fixed a date for PS6’s launch.”
Totoki’s terse acknowledgement of the ongoing delay won’t reassure PS6 fans who are already expecting a hefty wait for the next-gen console.
Though it was widely believed that Sony was initially eyeing a 2027 launch for the PS6, it was reported in February that the tech giant is “considering” pushing the launch back until 2028 or 2029. According to the report by Bloomberg, the potential delay could be necessary because of a shortage of memory clips.
“That would be a major upset to a carefully orchestrated strategy to sustain user engagement between hardware generations,” the report noted. Sony launched the PlayStation 3 in November 2013 and the PlayStation 4 in November 2020, so a late-2027 launch date for the PS6 would certainly seem optimal.
Meanwhile, it has also been reported that the PlayStation 6 could end up retailing at more than $1000 (£740) because Sony bosses are refusing to sell consoles at a loss.
In a Q+A with investors back in June, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino was asked if the company would “continue to prioritise profitability of the hardware” for the PlayStation 6.
He replied: “As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses. At the same time, we are carefully monitoring the market and continuing to evaluate our approach. We believe it is important for us to make every effort to ensure that customers fully understand the value we provide in relation to pricing.”
In March, Sony raised the price of the PlayStation 5 for the second time in a year. The PS5 Pro went from £699.99 to £789.99 while the standard digital version of the console now costs £519.99, up from £429.99. The price hike was blamed on “continued pressures in the global economic landscape” and it looks like that won’t improve for the launch of the PlayStation 6.
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