The favorable approach we already saw with the PlayStation 5 will probably continue.
According to new information published by Moore’s Law Is Dead, both the home console version of the PlayStation 6 and its handheld counterpart will be backward compatible with Sony’s two previous generations, namely the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, giving access to a library of thousands of games released since those consoles launched. The information reportedly comes from an old internal AMD presentation slide that explicitly mentions backward compatibility along with several other notable development areas.
AI workstream for SR and VF: AI-based upscaling, or Super Resolution, as a platform-level capability. Backward compatibility for PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5 within RDNA 5: an active, structured engineering workstream focused on enabling PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 backward compatibility on the PlayStation 6 platform using RDNA 5 architecture. RDNA 5 area optimizations: likely work on chip-area efficiency for the platform. Low-power media playback: a dedicated low-power path for video and media playback, which is especially important for the battery life of the PlayStation 6 handheld. Ray tracing, with backward compatibility for PlayStation 5: support for ray tracing with backward compatibility for ray-traced PlayStation 5 games. Low-power SKU for the EU: Sony is specifically addressing EU energy-efficiency regulations. Canis GFX configuration and BC support: implementation of the Canis-specific GPU configuration and its backward compatibility support.
This is unquestionably great news, although perhaps not entirely surprising. The use of AMD’s RDNA 5 architecture had already hinted at the possibility of backward compatibility. The leaker also stressed that the PlayStation 6 handheld should not be viewed as a separate product. In reality, it is also a PlayStation 6, part of the same ecosystem as the main console. It also appears to be fairly inexpensive. Moore’s Law Is Dead estimates that manufacturing the PlayStation 6 handheld APU will cost Sony just $46.80, whereas the smaller PlayStation 5 APU still costs $81.50.
Even so, Canis is expected to outperform the PlayStation 5, which led the leaker to suggest that Sony should put the same APU into a box and sell it for $399 as a kind of PlayStation 6 S model, something that could perform very well in the current economic climate.
Source: WCCFTech
