u/Game_f

I've been trying to verify by phone number so I can get access to messages but I put my number in (UK) and even after several hours I don't get a text message - I've been trying all week.

Really disappointed with Sony's general service at the moment, I've had a PS3 since I was a kid and this is something every other company can get right, I've never had an issue with verify by phone yet Sony can't get something this simple correct.

I don't trust them with my id so I want to verify by phone number.

Sony's CEO recently gave an interview with Wall Street Journal and he said they are not yet sure when they will release the PS6 and for how much. I think they were targeting late 2027 but things have really affected the market - mainly memory prices due to ai demand, as well as the impact tariffs and wars have had and are still having.

It's the memory which is causing the big issues. The specs for PS6 were leaked a while ago now, the soc apu design includes an 8 core zen 6c cpu (plus two lower powered cores for os/system), an rdna 5 gpu and 30gb gddr7 memory. The APU would have been designed a very long time ago, especially as they reached A0 tapeout many months ago. So this ultimately means there is some talk about reducing the memory. I believe, going by reputable leakers like Kepler_L2, they will now go with a 1tb ssd instead of 2tb.

However, it's the 30gb memory has been talked about extensively recently. As I understand it, due to the 160 bit bus width which, again, would have been fixed a long time ago as part of the soc design and cannot be realistically be changed now, PS6 will either have 30gb memory (10x3gb gddr7 modules) or 20gb (10x2gb). Some people now think Sony will go with 20gb memory as the wholesale prices for just the memory alone may be anywhere from $300-600. We know Sony negotiates these well in advance, so we don't know exactly how much they will be paying, but it will be a lot.

I may be wrong, but my personal take is that they will still go with 30gb memory as planned because the system, the games, sdk etc would have been designed with 30gb in mind up till now. So whilst swapping out 3gb modules to 2gb modules can be done and not crazy difficult like redesigning the soc, it's also simply not enough to last from 2028-2035. PS5 Pro has 18gb memory (16gb gddr6 + 2gb ddr5), and 2gb more for a powerful next gen PS6 will just not be enough. 20gb on PS6 would mean about 4gb will be reserved for system/os and 15-16gb for games - just slightly more than the 13.7gb available for games on the PS5 Pro.

Even with the talk of texture compression tech, which is still in beta and not used in games yet, memory requirements always go up, especially now, for things like ray/path tracing, machine learning 'neural arrays', frame gen etc - all things which will feature on PS6. Leakers aren't even sure if texture compression is included in the ps6 sdk so 20gb, in my opinion, just will not work.

If they do go with 20gb to save costs as some people are thinking, then the ps6 will be bottlenecked by memory, especially in the second half of the generation. I know this because developers are already using all of the 18gb on PS5 Pro in the heavier games. We've also seen the effects of low memory in consoles like PS3, xbox one and xbox series s and the problems they caused. In fact, developers literally begged Mark Cerny to up memory from 4gb to 8gb for PS4 which they did and it turned out to be an excellent decision. I already have a PS5 Pro, I don't want a bottlenecked PS6 which will end up being a PS5 Pro Pro - I have no need or desire for this. When I upgrade, I want a next generation system.

So I think they should (and will?) go with 30gb. Which means it could cost anywhere from $1000-1200 or maybe more. It's not ideal but they should just release it, subsidize a little bit in line with their usual amounts and put it out for $1000-1200. We have to hope that the memory prices will eventually come down and then Sony could aggressively discount the console. It may be 2-3 years at least before that happens, but I would say that's the far better option and it's not like a 20gb PS6 will be a friendly $600, it will be very expensive regardless.

I think they'll have to go with a PC type model. Long cross gen support for PS5, PS5 Pro and PS6, release games on both, support both and then people will eventually naturally jump ship. Like the PS4 to PS5 era, which had a long cross gen period - the next one will be longer. There's also talk about financing so people can buy PS6 on a payment plan like phones.

A lot of this, of course, is just my opinion in this pretty bad situation right now. What are your thoughts?

This follows on from a discussion here a few weeks ago about memory and in the recent DF Direct Q+A where Oliver has said he thinks PS6 will come with 20gb memory instead of the earlier leaked 30gb.

With the PS4, they famously upgraded memory from 4gb to 8gb months before production after developers deeply voiced their concerns to Mark Cerny - of course it turned out to be a great decision. From a technical point of view, I believe the reason why they could do that is because the 256-bit gddr5 bus allowed support for an additional 8 modules (other side of the motherboard) which meant they didn't have to redesign the entire soc/board.

The PS6 situation is a lot more interesting. Several leakers, Kepler_L2 and MLID have both said it will have 30gb gddr7. A0 tapeout was reached many months ago which means the major decisions have been made and this includes the memory bus width. So as far as I am aware, (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), realistically and practically, at this stage, they only have two options which is 20gb (10 x 2gb gddr7 modules) or 30gb (10 x 3gb). With 20gb, that would probably leave around 16gb reserved for games and with 30gb, that would leave about 26gb for games.

Ollie (DF) now thinks they will go with 20gb but I have to disagree. They would have to revalidate all their stuff with the memory controller, timing etc and also tell the developers to work towards 16gb or so for their games. Not crazy difficult, and can be done, sure, but the main reason why I disagree is because it simply won't be enough - something which Kepler_L2 also said when he was asked about the possibility of it being 20gb several months ago.

Currently PS5 Pro has 16gb gddr6 + 2gb ddr5 to give 18gb total memory, of that about 13.7gb is accessible for developers for games (rest is OS). The developers have used every bit of the extra 1.2ish gb on the pro in heavy graphics games for things like more detailed reflections/environments/rt. There is no way (in my opinion of course) that another 2gb will be enough to last from say 2028 to 2035 on a next generation ps6.

Now, the boys spoke about texture compression technology for next gen, but that just covers one area - other things like geometry, characters, animations, npcs, world simulation, rt/pt etc also use up a lot of memory and will keep rising. And PS6 is clearly targeting path tracing (the AMDxMark Cerny video), games can use something like 4gb alone just for ray/path tracing - bvh structures etc. PS6 is also certain to have frame gen (as Mark Cerny said) - that also drives up memory usage as we've seen on pc gpus.

In the history of console gaming generations, I don't think we have ever seen memory requirements stagnate and it certainly will not happen now for triple a titles. In fact, we have seen developers struggle with low memory on certain consoles and they were vocal about it - ps3, xbox one and xbox series s. I also think the 10 core (8 + 2 low powered) zen 6 cpu and rdna5 gpu rumoured to feature in the ps6 apu sounds really promising - but there's very little point if we are constrained by memory. The vast detailed ps6 worlds cannot be as vast and detailed I would say.

I rarely ever disagree with DF my thoughts are a 20gb ps6, with 16gb usable for games is almost a dead console, especially the second half of the next generation. I understand the cost issue, and I would think it's far better for Sony to release PS6, with 30gb, pass on the costs to the consumers until they can discount it heavily. It might mean it launches for $1000-1200 to get it out there - wait a few years and then when memory prices drop (and they will drop eventually) it becomes cheap and sells mass market.

What do you guys think? Agree with Ollie that it will be 20gb? Can they make it work up to 2035 with 20gb? What sacrifices will need to be made? PS6 Pro mid gen to come with 30gb? Or they will go ahead as planned with 30gb?

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Edit: Just want to say something about prices and give my thoughts (just my opinion of course).

Apparently 3gb gddr7 modules are costing $60-70 whilst 2gb gddr7 modules are $20 in the current wholesale market. Now Sony have always negotiated very well for wholesale component prices and way ahead of production (it's one of the reasons they could wait a lot longer to increase PS5 prices), but it still means 3gb modules will still be costing them around $50 at least. Which means 30gb will cost them $500 at least, probably more, whilst 20gb will cost them $200 - possibly less. So we're talking a difference of about $300-500 potentially on this decision. Well I say decision, the decision was made for 30gb, it would be, say, a reconsideration to go with 20gb. By the way, I will say it's also quite likely that Sony have secured allocation a while ago.

I think (my opinion) they should go with 30gb as planned because I, and most believe, this is a temporary price gain. It maybe 2 or 3 years before before these come down, but most people including me are certain it will. If they have to price it $1200 or $1400 whatever, they should and bring the console out, let developers make the games. The console will still millions of units, just not as many as it would do for $800. But they key thing is, in 2029 or 2030, whenever, Sony can discount the console very aggressively and then the sales will rocket. Developers are using every bit of the 16gb and 18gb on PS5 and PS5 Pro, only 2gb more on PS6 up to 2035 is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. PS4 had 8gb, PS5 16gb - even with texture compression tech, memory requirements have and will only go up. Textures are just one part, everything else is requiring more and more memory.

I think this is where cross gen and PS5 and PS5 Pro come into play. If the PS6 is indeed too expensive for most people, and it will be regardless of 20gb or 30gb (tariffs, ai, wars etc), then PS5 and PS5 Pro users can keep playing until the natural time to jump occurs. Only fairly recently we've seen developers switch to PS5 as well as monthly active users to PS5 as well.

Who remembers when vram amounts was the hottest topic for PC gamers before all this ai stuff happened.

But anyway, I have a 4070 which has 12gb of vram. My card before that was a 3070 which had 8gb. I don't know if people remember, 3070 was a great card and then suddenly several games just started releasing where 3070 users were struggling due to running out of vram. 10gb 3080 owners were also facing these issues.

This was when developers started getting used to PS5 and designing games for it. So with the 16gb shared gddr6 memory, about 12.5gb was reserved for games, so while it's not an exact science, it figures why 8gb cards started struggling. Think people were also frustrated that 3070/3080 10gb were powerful cards at the time, but vram bottlenecked their performance.

When I upgraded to the 4070 - I was able to turn the textures up again. In some occasions I would run out, e.g. The Last of Us Part 1 ran fine with ultra textures - just once or twice it would max out and cause stuttering.

Some people just say run lower textures. Problem is nowadays, some games gimp textures so badly in medium (sometimes on high), the game looks awful. And now more vram is allocated to other game related features. not just textures.

PS6 is reported to have 30gb gddr7 according to reliable leakers and next xbox significantly more. My worry is if devs start to target PS6, what will that do for 12gb and 16gb cards? If say, 26gb is allocated to PS6 games of the 30gb, and developers start using that properly for things like textures, ray tracing (bvh etc), geometry and other thing, how will this impact?

I have my mind set on an rtx 6070 which will probably have a maximum of 16gb given the current circumstances. I have no doubt a 6070 will be more powerful than the ps6 gpu, however, I'm more concerned about vram. Even before the ai memory issues, nvidia were horrible with their vram amounts - even though it cost them very little at the time. Now it's even worse.

Do you guys see this a potential issue like we saw in the early PS5 gen? How do you think 12gb and 16gb cards will fair? (aside from all the other crap that's happening).

I'm just discussing with some people if PS6 will have a disc drive. I'm not happy with the digital decision which they seem locked on with, however, I really hope they will add an optional disc drive on PS6.

We still need it for backwards compatibility and blu rays. I can't see them not giving a disc drive for all those people with big game collections. Some people seem to think there will be no disc drive at all.

I also hope it attaches nicely like PS5 slim/pro and not some horrible external thing.

I just downloaded FC 26 and have been playing it for a couple of days. I noticed the actual pace of the online gameplay is ridiculously fast and feels a lot of faster than recent fc/fifa titles.

I enjoy a game where you have to pass around, work things, try draw defenders out of position etc - not asking for real life pace, but this type of ping pong passing in FC 26 feels like a joke. I think it's generally good, the interaction of the ball, the control etc but it just feels like they've put the speed setting way up for online games.

I know there's an authentic mode elsewhere but my usual play is online seasons.

I'm guessing they do this because most people want this? Maybe they could give two modes for online as well? An additional authentic mode?

I just downloaded FC 26 and have been playing it for a couple of days. I noticed the actual pace of the online gameplay is ridiculously fast and feels a lot of faster than recent fc/fifa titles.

I enjoy a game where you have to pass around, work things, try draw defenders out of position etc - not asking for real life pace, but this type of ping pong passing in FC 26 feels like a joke. I think it's generally good, the interaction of the ball, the control etc but it just feels like they've put the speed setting way up for online games.

I know there's an authentic mode elsewhere but my usual play is online seasons.

I'm guessing they do this because most people want this? Maybe they could give two modes for online as well? An additional authentic mode?