Key Takeaways:
- Former PlayStation Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says Sony and Nintendo should keep their current consoles going “as long as possible” rather than rushing into next-gen hardware.
- The PS5 now costs $650 (disc) and $600 (digital) — up from $500 and $400 at launch in 2020. The PS5 Pro sits at $900, up from $700 at launch. Switch 2 has risen from $450 to $500.
- The culprit is a global memory shortage driven by AI datacenter demand — what some are calling “RAMageddon” — which has sent component costs soaring across the board.
- Yoshida argues neither players nor developers are actively asking for more powerful hardware right now, making the case for extending the current generation even stronger.
- PS6 was previously expected around 2028, but that window now looks increasingly unlikely — with 2029 or later being the more realistic target given the memory supply crunch.
- The outlier is Xbox, which has been more vocal about next-gen with Project Helix — alpha dev kits arriving at studios in 2027, with a consumer launch likely late 2027 or beyond.
One of the most respected voices in the games industry has weighed in on the console pricing crisis — and his take is that Sony and Nintendo shouldn’t even be thinking about next-gen hardware right now. Shuhei Yoshida, former president of Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Worldwide Studios, has said plainly that platform holders should be focused on stretching their current generation as far as it will go.
What Yoshida Said
Speaking to The Verge on its Vergecast podcast, Yoshida laid out his thinking clearly. With both Sony and Nintendo having sold strong numbers of their current-generation hardware — the PS5 and Switch 2 respectively — the economic case for rushing a successor doesn’t hold up right now.
“Sony and Nintendo have sold enough numbers of their current-generation hardware, so because of the cost of goods, they might be looking [at] pushing back the launch of next gen,” Yoshida said. “I think they should try to keep the current generation as long as possible, because people are very happy using PS5 and Switch 2.”
His argument isn’t just about demand — it’s about what a next-gen console would actually cost consumers. “People have [a] finite budget, and it feels like PC and consoles, the components very specific to these devices have increased their price way more than all the other forms of entertainment,” he continued. “People who have systems like PS5, Switch 2, or PCs — you know, good enough PCs — probably will be happy to play games on them and not necessarily consider replacing [them].”
Yoshida also noted that neither gamers nor developers are banging the drum for a hardware upgrade. “I don’t think lots of people are asking for more power — ‘We need more power!’ — or even developers. I don’t think developers are asking [for] better hardware. So I think that means that the current generation, Sony and Nintendo are going to do pretty well for many years to come, still.”
The Numbers Behind the Concern: PS5 and Switch 2 Price History
To understand why Yoshida is making this argument, the price history of current hardware tells the whole story. The PS5 launched in November 2020 at $500 (disc) and $400 (digital). Those same consoles now cost $650 and $600 respectively — increases of $150 and $200 in under six years, a trajectory that is almost unprecedented for gaming hardware. The PS5 Pro launched in 2024 at $700 and has already been pushed to $900. The PlayStation Portal accessory has gone from $200 to $250.
Consoles are not supposed to get more expensive over time. The entire traditional business model of hardware manufacturing — sell at a loss early, profit later as production costs fall — has been upended. Sony has raised PS5 prices four times since launch, and the justification each time has been essentially the same: ongoing global economic pressures, with memory and component costs at the center of it.
Nintendo isn’t immune either. The Switch 2 launched in 2025 at $450 and has already risen to $500. More increases may follow — Bloomberg has previously reported that Nintendo was considering further hikes as the RAM shortage shows no sign of easing.
RAMageddon: Why Components Are So Expensive Right Now
The underlying driver here is what’s being called “RAMageddon” — a sustained shortage in computer memory and storage components. The rise of AI datacenters has created enormous demand for memory production capacity. The problem is that semiconductor manufacturers plan their production output years in advance, and much of that capacity is already committed. AI infrastructure companies have essentially locked up a significant portion of near-future memory supply, leaving less available for consumer electronics — including gaming consoles.
The knock-on effect is higher prices for any device that depends on memory, which is everything from smartphones to gaming hardware to PC components. For Sony, this creates a genuine physical constraint: even if they wanted to start manufacturing PS6 at scale tomorrow, sourcing enough memory components at a viable price might simply not be possible. That’s not a business decision — it’s a supply chain reality.
What This Means for PS6
Before the current memory crisis deepened, the working consensus among analysts was that PlayStation 6 would arrive around 2028 — a reasonable forecast given that the PS5 launched in 2020 and the typical PlayStation cycle has been around seven years. Yoshida himself had previously described a 2028 launch as feeling “right” to him.
That timeline now looks increasingly optimistic. Bloomberg reporting earlier this year raised the prospect of PS6 being pushed to 2029 or later, and Yoshida’s latest comments suggest he’s moved in that direction too — framing it not as a delay but as the correct strategic call. If PS6 launched tomorrow at a price consumers would actually pay, it’s hard to see it coming in under $1,000 given where component costs sit. That’s a number that would significantly limit the console’s addressable market on day one.
There’s also the competitive angle. With PS5 still selling and gamers broadly satisfied, Sony has limited incentive to rush a successor. A longer current generation means more time for the game library to mature, more time for manufacturing costs to stabilize, and more time to build the install base that makes PS6’s launch worthwhile.
Xbox Is the Outlier — And That’s Telling
While Yoshida’s logic applies clearly to Sony and Nintendo, he acknowledged that Microsoft’s situation is different — and it shows in Xbox’s behavior. At GDC 2026, Microsoft detailed its next-generation console, Project Helix, confirming that alpha dev kits would reach game studios in 2027. The console is powered by a custom AMD system-on-chip and promises an “order of magnitude” leap in ray tracing performance over the current Xbox Series X|S.
Yoshida acknowledged this, noting that Xbox is in a fundamentally different competitive position. “Xbox is a team who wants to change the competing landscape, so it’s going to be hard for them, but it’s their time to play. It’s very exciting, what’s going to happen next year?” The implication is clear: Xbox has strong incentive to go next-gen because the current generation hasn’t gone well commercially. Sony and Nintendo don’t have that same pressure — their consoles are selling, their customers are happy, and rushing next-gen would mean asking those customers to pay even more money for hardware at a moment when budgets are already stretched.
Yoshida used his own experience to illustrate the point. He bought a gaming PC five years ago, recently considered upgrading — and then the price hike hit. He decided against it. That’s the consumer psychology that platform holders are now navigating. The upgrade impulse doesn’t disappear, but at some threshold of cost, it gets deferred indefinitely.
The Bigger Picture
Yoshida’s comments carry extra weight because of who he is — a 31-year Sony veteran who helped build the PlayStation brand from the ground up, not a current executive with a corporate line to hold. He’s speaking as someone with deep industry knowledge and no stake in managing perceptions for a specific outcome. When he says Sony and Nintendo should focus on sustaining the current generation, it reads as genuine analysis rather than spin.
The irony is that “keep the current hardware going longer” is a message gamers would have celebrated in previous generations. Now it arrives in a context where the current hardware is already getting more expensive — not less — and where the next generation, whenever it arrives, will almost certainly cost more than anything console gaming has seen before. The era of $500 being the ceiling for a flagship console launch appears to be over.
For now, if you own a PS5 or a Switch 2, Yoshida’s message is essentially: you’re in a good place, those machines have a lot of life left in them, and the grass on the next-gen side is unlikely to look as green as it costs.
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