We already have our first information about Sony’s inevitable PlayStation 6: It will run on AMD chips, according to a report from Reuters
Sony’s PS5 features an AMD CPU – a custom AMD Zen 2 – and a GPU – a custom AMD RDNA 2 for the base PS5 and RDNA 3 for the upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro. According to Reuters, the switch to chips from Intel may have jeopardized backwards compatibility, or at least made it more expensive for Sony’s engineers to support backwards compatibility. The PlayStation 4 also ran on processors made by AMD.
The PlayStation maker has a long history of supporting backwards compatibility between consoles. The PlayStation 2 could play original PlayStation games right out of the box. Early versions of the PlayStation 3 also supported its two predecessors. Sony broke its backwards compatibility streak with the PS4, which didn’t support PS3 games right out of the box but eventually allowed access to them through emulation.
Reuters’ report on the PS6 certainly suggests that Sony intends to support PS5 games on its next-gen console, which has not yet been announced and has no clear release window. Sony just announced the PS5 Pro last week for a November launch. A PS6 console will almost certainly be years away, given the seven-year gap between the release of the PS4 and PS5.
Sony’s decision to choose AMD over Intel reportedly dates back to 2022. But the PlayStation maker probably started working on its PS5 successor long before that. According to Shawn Layden, former chairman of SIE Worldwide Studios, Sony usually starts[s] working on the next generation of platforms almost one day after the current generation was delivered.” In an interview with What’s New – PlayStation Podcastsaid Layden, “As soon as you deliver a product, you already have a team way behind […] who is already working on the next version.”
