No Date, No Price, No Plan? PS6 Stalled by AI Boom

"We have not yet decided on at what timing we will launch the new console, or at what prices." That's Sony president and CEO Hiroki Totoki, speaking during a Q&A session following the company's annual corporate strategy and earnings call today. No launch window. No price point. Not even a direction. The PlayStation 6 is, by Sony's own admission, a console without a plan.

The culprit isn't a lack of ambition or engineering talent. It's memory. Specifically, the global shortage of it, driven almost entirely by the AI industry's ravenous appetite for the same components that go into game consoles. As reported by Insider Gaming, Totoki explained that while Sony has secured enough materials for the rest of 2026, the outlook for fiscal year 2027 is bleak. "The memory price is also expected to be very high FY 2027, because there will still be a shortage of supply," he said. "So under that assumption, we must think carefully what we will do."

I've covered a lot of corporate earnings calls that amount to nothing more than rehearsed optimism. This one felt different. A sitting CEO of one of the three major console manufacturers openly admitting he can't commit to a release date or a retail price for his next flagship product is extraordinary. Sony isn't being coy here; it doesn't know.

The AI Tax on Gaming

This isn't happening in a vacuum. Valve recently blamed the AI boom for Steam Deck shortages and delays to its Steam Machines initiative. Nintendo just announced a US price hike for the Switch 2. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has hinted that memory costs could affect next-gen pricing and availability. Apple expects supply issues to persist into the foreseeable future. Every major hardware manufacturer is telling the same story: generative AI datacentres are hoovering up memory supply, and everyone else is fighting over what's left.

The practical impact on PlayStation is already visible. Sony's own financial report forecasts a decrease in PS5 hardware sales for fiscal year 2026, with the company planning to base PS5 production on "the volume of memory we can procure at reasonable prices." Shacknews noted that Sony estimates a 6% year-over-year decline in hardware sales. The PS5 just had its worst quarter ever, and Bungie's value under PlayStation has dropped by $765 million. None of this screams "ready to launch a new console."

What's particularly striking is Totoki's comment about business models. He said Sony is considering "changing business models to come up with the best solution and strategy." That's deliberately vague, and nobody at Sony elaborated on what it means. It could refer to the long-rumoured PlayStation handheld. It could mean a different pricing structure for the PS6 itself, perhaps a subsidised model offset by subscriptions, or a tiered hardware approach. It could mean something nobody's guessed yet. The fact that Sony is even publicly floating the idea of abandoning its traditional console business model tells you how seriously it's taking this crisis.

Some reports have previously suggested that Sony could delay the PS6 as far as 2029. A few months ago, that sounded like speculation designed for clicks. After today, it doesn't sound unrealistic at all. If memory prices remain elevated through 2027 and supply doesn't improve, Sony would be looking at either launching a console at a price consumers won't stomach or waiting until the market corrects. Neither option is great.

Totoki did offer one piece of reassurance: PlayStation's active user base continues to grow, which gives Sony breathing room. The PS5 is approaching 100 million lifetime units sold, and first-party game sales are expected to increase this fiscal year. Sony isn't in crisis mode; it has a healthy installed base and a pipeline of software to sell into it. But the longer the PS6 sits in limbo, the more that window of comfort narrows.

I think what frustrates me most about this situation is that it's entirely external to gaming. Sony isn't struggling because it made bad hardware decisions or because the PS5 failed. It's struggling because an industry that has nothing to do with consoles is consuming the global supply of a critical component. Gamers are paying the price, literally, for an AI gold rush they didn't ask for and largely don't benefit from. Every dollar that goes into training a large language model is a dollar competing for the same silicon that could go into a PS6 or a Steam Deck.

Sony's financial report for fiscal year 2025 is available on its corporate site. The company predicted an increase in first-party game sales for the coming year, so at least PS5 owners should have software to look forward to, even if the next generation remains a question mark with no answer attached.