According to a new leak shared by YouTuber Moore's Law Is Dead, the PlayStation 6 and PS6 handheld will be backward compatible across both of Sony's previous generations (the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5), providing access to a library of thousands of games from the consoles' launches.
The leak comes from an old internal AMD presentation's slide that explicitly mentions backward compatibility, as well as other notable workstream items:
- AI Workstream for SR and VF: AI upscaling (Super Resolution) as a platform-level capability
- BackCompatibility (PS4/PS5) within RDNA5: An active, structured engineering workstream for PS4/PS5 backward compatibility across the PS6 platform on RDNA5 architecture
- RDNA5 Area optimizations: Likely die area efficiency work across the platform
- Low Power Media Playback: A dedicated low-power path for video and media, which is especially important for battery life on the PS6 handheld
- RT (w/ BC to PS5): Ray tracing support with backward compatibility for PS5 ray traced games
- Low Power SKU for EU: Sony is specifically addressing EU energy efficiency regulations here
- CANIS GFX configuration and BC support: the Canis-specific GPU configuration and its backward compatibility implementation
That's undoubtedly great news, though perhaps not entirely surprising. The usage of AMD's RDNA 5 architecture already suggested potential backward compatibility. Indeed, during the stream, MLID stressed that the PS6 handheld is not to be considered a separate product. It is effectively a PS6, part of the same ecosystem as the main console.
It's also apparently quite cheap. MLID has estimated that the PS6 handheld's APU will cost Sony just $46.8 to manufacture, whereas even the die-shrunk PS5 APU still costs Sony $81.5, basically twice as much. Even so, Canis is expected to outperform the PS5, which prompted MLID to suggest that Sony actually also put the same APU in a box and sell it at a $399 as a sort of PlayStation 6 S that could do very well in this economic environment.
For a full roundup of info on the PS6 and PS6 handheld, go to this page. We also have a direct comparison with Xbox's Project Helix console available at this URL.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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