Video Games

PS6 to be powered by AMD to ensure backward compatibility, report says

Sony goes with what it knows

Marco Wutz

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Intel tried to become Sony’s chip manufacturer for the PlayStation 6, but ended up losing the contract to longtime Sony partner AMD, a new report from Reuters suggests. Citing sources with knowledge of the matter, Reuters wrote that Intel’s internal projections estimated the PS6 contract to be worth about $30 billion USD for the company over the course of its runtime.

Sony eventually decided to stick with AMD due to its longtime partner offering the better deal as well as making it easier to ensure backward compatibility with previous PlayStation consoles. According to the report, Intel and Sony had discussions around this topic at a high level, which made it obvious that switching chip manufacturers would put backward compatibility at risk.

An Intel spokesperson commented on the report with the following: “We strongly disagree with this characterization but are not going to comment about any current or potential customer conversations. We have a very healthy customer pipeline across both our product and foundry business, and we are squarely focused on innovating to meet their needs.”

Reuters did not receive reactions from any of the other companies involved in the bidding war that reportedly took place in 2022.

The PS6 has not officially been announced by Sony, which only recently revealed the PS5 Pro – a refresh of 2020’s PS5 bringing marginal upgrades to the system for a price tag not everyone is happy with.

The next console generation is expected to land on the shelves in 2028, at least going by some leaked documents from Xbox. Sony and Microsoft have generally been in step when it comes to launching their new machines, so this is a solid time window to keep an eye on for both.

Published
Marco Wutz

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

Home/News