The next generation of consoles are still years away, but according to various sources from Microsoft is already working on a successor to the Xbox Seriesand Sony is doing the same with the PS6. This is quite normal, because at the end of the day, the development of a new console is a very complex project that involves several different phases and that requires several years before you can move forward.

The fact is that according to an interesting rumor, Microsoft wants to overtake Sony by launching the successor of the Xbox Series could arrive in 2026i.e. within three years, while the PS6 launch would occur earlier late 2027 or early 2028. To be honest, I find such a big time difference a little hard to believe, but the truth is that it makes sense to see what the current landscape looks like and the war that Sony and Microsoft are waging, let me explain.

As our regular readers are sure to know, Sony is clearly winning the current console generation war, and Microsoft doesn’t seem to be able to turn the tables. So we are left with two different realities, one in which Sony is experiencing a golden moment that it wants to hold on to for as long as possible so that it has no reason to rush the launch of a new console, and the other is the complete opposite, that of Microsoft.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Redmond society is bad, nothing could be further from the truth, I’m just saying has more reasons to want to launch a new generation with which to start from scratch and with which to try to achieve victory against Sony and Nintendo.

What can we expect from the successor to the Xbox Series X?

It is clear that there will be a clear generational leap, and when we see where Microsoft’s investments and the most important advances in the video game console sector are headed, I think we can draw some interesting conclusions. The successor to the Xbox Series will use AMD APU again for two reasons cost and backward compatibility.

AMD and Microsoft will once again work together to develop a new generation of APUs that will integrate CPU and GPU into the same package, and will make an agreement to adjust prices and keep costs reasonable. Said APU could be configured with A CPU that will have high performance cores and less powerful but more efficient coressomething that makes a lot of sense because:

• Higher performance cores would be used in games.
• Efficient cores would be reserved for the operating system and applications.
• This would reduce CPU TDP and silicon footprint.

Given the release date, Microsoft could use a derivative of the Zen 6 architecture from AMD, which would be adapted to the peculiarities of APUs, where the GPU takes precedence over the CPU. This means that we would have cuts at the FPU and cache level, as well as adjustments to the operating frequencies, and that its actual performance would not be comparable to that of a Zen 6 PC CPU, as has already happened with the Xbox series APUs. x.

On the GPU side, it is most likely that a custom solution based on RDNA 5. This new graphics core should have performance comparable to a mid-range graphics card within the mentioned generation, will have fourth-generation units for ray tracing acceleration and third-generation cores for AI. You will have too frequency level cuts and infinite cache.

When it comes to technical improvements, we can be sure that the new generation of Xbox Series will be able to handle it work better with ray tracing, which will have an API optimized to work more efficiently with micropolygons, which should significantly increase performance when working with heavy geometric loads, and it is said that you will be able to use specialized AI cores to implement Smart scaling under DirectML.

Everything I’ve just told you makes sense, but it’s important to always keep in mind that both the PS6 and the successor to the Xbox Series They are still in the very early stages of developmentso there are many possibilities and many doors open, which means changes can come to all the keys we’ve seen.

How much will the next generation of consoles cost?

It’s a good question and not an easy answer. The trend I see in the most reliable sources clearly shows increase in production costs, and that this will be a consequence of the price increase of the most important components, such as APUs and memories. It makes sense, but that alone doesn’t mean the price of the next generation of consoles will skyrocket.

Both Sony and Microsoft could choose sell their new consoles at cost or even at a slight loss, because ultimately they both run a business and derive a significant portion of their revenue from the sale of games and services. In this sense, Microsoft stands out above all with Xbox Game Pass, a service that has been enormously successful and generates a significant amount of money.

It wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, both companies have resorted to this loss and compensation sales strategy for software and services on more than one occasion, though no doubt one of the most remembered was the PS3 era, console that took a long time for Sony to generate revenue from hardware sales.

We’ll see what happens in a few years, but I’ll leave you with a personal prediction, I think both the successor to the Xbox Series X and the PS6 will be priced the same or slightly higher than the current models at launch. Given the specifics, I’d bet on the suggested retail price for the base pack and the reference models in between 500 and 600 euros.