While the PS5 continues to stock store shelves, eyes are already turning to the next generation. Officially, nothing has been announced. But the most attentive have noted several weak signals which, put together, outline the contours of an unexpected project at Sony: a PlayStation 6… in portable format.
This wouldn’t be the brand’s first attempt. After the PSP and the PS Vita, the shadow of failure has long slowed down any nomadic ambition. Yet behind the scenes, a very different approach appears to be at work. Rather than focusing everything on power, Sony would focus on energy intelligence. A radical change of direction, initiated discreetly through a simple mode that appeared on PS5.
Power Saver Mode: a detail that says a lot
Appearing without fanfare in the latest PS5 system updates, Power Saver Mode could well be the key to reading the future of PlayStation. This mode allows the console to run with reduced resources, limiting the use of the processor and graphics card to consume less energy.
Although it might seem anecdotal, this mode becomes central when we discover that it is now integrated by default into the development tools. Sony has even modified its SDK in depth, forcing studios to make their games compatible with this low-consumption operation. An effort that exceeds that requested for the PS5 Pro. The logic is obvious: it is no longer just a question of performance, but of compatibility with mobile hardware.
Technical leaks that betray a console in gestation
Confidential documents relayed by Moore’s Law is Dead suggest a prototype known internally under the code name “Canis”. It would be a standalone device, featuring a quad-core AMD Zen 6c chip, coupled with an RDNA 5 GPU, for a total of 12 to 20 compute units.
The objective would be clear: achieve half the power of a PS5 while maintaining an energy consumption of around 15 watts. On the memory side, we are talking about 16 GB of LPDDR5X on 128-bit bus. Serious technical characteristics, but designed for the balance between autonomy and power – exactly what gamers expect from a premium portable console.
What if the portable PS6 already existed… in Sony’s minds?
What is most striking is that the entire production chain seems to be adjusting to this project. Adapted development tools, standardization of low consumption, guaranteed compatibility with PS5 games… All the lights are green for a new format. Not a simple gadget like the PS Portal, but a complete machine, capable of running recent titles without compromise.
For Sony, the future will perhaps not only be in the living room, but also in mobility. And unlike the PS Vita, the next console might not start from scratch, but capitalize on an existing catalog. The portable PS6 would therefore not be a separate console: it would embody the continuity of an ecosystem, with a single library of games, designed from the start to be played everywhere.