Sony’s rumoured PS6 handheld will have better specs than the Xbox Series S according to a leaker, as they share comparisons to the Nintendo Switch 2.
Sony hasn’t officially announced anything regarding its successor to the PlayStation 5, but one prevailing rumour is that it might be joined by an accompanying handheld.
There’s been growing evidence to suggest Sony is planning a PlayStation 6 handheld along with a home console. However, it’s unclear if this will be a standalone device like the PS Vita, a remote player like the PlayStation Portal, or some kind of hybrid.
We’ve already heard how it might be dockable and capable of running PlayStation 5 games at a lower resolution (possibly through a new power saver mode), but an insider has now made comparisons to the Xbox Series S and Nintendo Switch 2.
In a post on NeoGaf, insider KeplerL2, who has a decent track record when it comes to hardware leaks, claimed the handheld’s GPU (graphics processing unit) will be ‘a bit ahead’ of the Xbox Series S in terms of raster graphics and ‘massively ahead’ in ray tracing and path tracing.
They go onto claim the handheld will deliver superior image quality with the next version of Sony’s AI-driven upscaler PSSR 3 (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) over the Nintendo Switch 2.
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‘Switch 2 only has DLSS 2 (CNN) and some games even use the worse ‘DLSS Lite’,’ they added, in reference to its upscaler. ‘FSR5/PSSR3 will be better [image quality] than even current DLSS 4.5.’
These details perhaps aren’t surprising if the handheld is looking to run PlayStation 5 games, but it sounds like it might be a notable upgrade over the Switch 2. However, in the current economic climate, the dealbreaker might be how much it costs in comparison.
KeplerL2 was discussing the handheld in relation to leaked specs from last year, which claimed it would have four Zen 6c Cores and 12-20 RDNA 5 Compute Units at 1.6-2GHz.
The big question (aside from whether it actually exists) is whether Sony will launch the handheld alongside the PlayStation 6, or delay it due to the ongoing memory shortage. The PlayStation 6 is expected to launch in 2027, but there have been rumours of a delay into 2028.
Sony recently announced a £90 price increase across all PlayStation 5 consoles, which comes into effect from Thursday, April 2. Despite the increase though, the same insider believes the cheapest PlayStation 6 model might not be as expensive as you’d think.
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