Huge PS6 report claims AMD is designing the new chip — here’s what we know

Just days after we got official confirmation of the PS5 Pro , we might have gotten our first bit of info about the as-yet-unconfirmed (but surely inevitable) PS6.

Even though Sony has yet to formally even reveal the future console's existence, a new report from Reuters claims the Japanese company has contracted AMD to design and fabricate the chip for the PS5 successor during a bidding process that took place back in 2022.

This decision would appear to make sense; after all, the current PlayStation generation is already powered by AMD chips, and this apparently factored into the decision-making process for the next console.

Per the report, we know that Intel and AMD were the final two options, but Sony opted to continue working with the latter company because switching to Intel "would have risked backwards compatibility" according to the report.

"Moving from AMD, which made the PlayStation 5 chip, to Intel would have risked backwards compatibility, which was a subject of discussion between Intel and Sony engineers and executives," the sources said.

"Ensuring backward compatibility with prior versions of the PlayStation would have been costly and taken engineering resources", the report reads. Sounds like you'll be able to play all the best PS5 games on the shiny new system as and when it arrives, then!

To be clear, neither Sony nor AMD had commented on the report at the time of writing, so everything's still unconfirmed just yet. However, this report does lend further credence to the first PS6 spec leaks , which claimed Sony would continue its current relationship with AMD back in February. At the time, the rumor mill speculated that the chip would boast a beefy gaming experience; either 4K at 120 fps or 8K at 60 fps.

What else do we know about the PS6?

The only other major PlayStation 6 rumor we've heard at present is that the PS6 won't be hitting the market anytime soon.

Just a few days after the PS5's second birthday, documents were released publicly as part of the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) review into Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition . From a couple of points made in those documents, we learned that Sony's not planning to release the PS6 until at least after 2027. Apart from that, we're still very much in the "rumors" stage of the PlayStation 6 pipeline.

In the meantime, we've got the PS5 Pro to get to grips with. It's promising to be the most advanced PlayStation console yet (here's everything that was announced in the PS5 Pro technical showcase presentation so you're up to speed), but the eye-watering price point is currently generating a ton of buzz.

If you're planning to skip the mid-generation upgrade — even after Sony defended the PS5 Pro's hefty price tag — we'll be keeping up with all the rumors about the PS6 here at Tom's Guide.

More from Tom's Guide

• PS5 Pro is overpriced — here’s why I’m buying one anyway
• PS5 Pro pre-orders — here's when they start, and which retailers will have stock
• I've been a PlayStation fan for over 20 years — here’s why I’m skipping the PS5 Pro