- Primary Subject: Console Feature Creep vs PS6 Pricing
- Key Update: The argument questions whether future consoles like PS6 need to keep adding expensive “headline” features, suggesting that reducing non-essential tech could help control rising hardware costs.
- Status: Opinion
- Last Verified: July 8, 2026
- Quick Answer: The core idea is that modern consoles may be getting more expensive because too many features are being treated as mandatory, even when they only matter for marketing or short-term excitement.
Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden recently argued that Sony’s mistake with the PlayStation Vita was not simply that it made a handheld that failed to catch fire.
It was that Sony tried to make the Vita too clever for its own good. Layden’s alternative was hardly radical. Improve the PSP, add the missing second stick, and avoid turning its successor into a showcase for every new feature Sony could think of.
The OLED screen, rear touchpad, and proprietary memory cards may have made the Vita feel futuristic, but they also pushed up costs and complicated the value proposition.
I have had much the same thought ever since talk of an eye-wateringly expensive PS6 first started. Hardware is getting more expensive, the PS5 Pro has already shown how high console prices can go, and now we are talking about PS6 as an expensive machine before we even know what it does.
We have become so accustomed to asking how powerful the next console should be that I think we have neglected a more useful question: how many features would I actually give up if doing so kept the price reasonable?
Quite a few, as it turns out. I do not want a bad console, obviously. I do not want weak hardware that developers spend the next seven years fighting, nor do I want a suspiciously cheap machine that becomes expensive the moment I need storage, a disc drive, or some other supposedly optional extra.
But if keeping the price down means losing technology I will marvel at for a few days and barely think about afterwards, I can live with that trade.
Does Every New Console Need To Feel Like A Technological Event?
The old console cycle trained us to expect spectacle.
A new PlayStation or Xbox was supposed to arrive with something the old machine simply could not do, whether that meant better graphics, larger worlds, a new media format, or some strange piece of technology that suddenly made last generation feel limited.
That expectation made sense when each generation brought an obvious leap. You did not need a technical breakdown to understand the jump from PS1 to PS2, or PS2 to PS3.
You could see the future arrive in the first few minutes. That gap has narrowed a lot. The PS5 is already a very capable machine, and many of the biggest games are still designed around cross-generation realities, PC scalability, or live-service longevity.
Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, GTA Online, and similar platform-like games do not rely on a brand-new box to remain culturally dominant. A younger player with an iPad, a phone, or an older console may not be waiting for the next hardware leap at all.
The hardware is only the first purchase in a console generation, which is precisely why the price of getting through the door matters so much.
Once the cost of entry gets too high, consoles lose one of the biggest advantages they have always had. Sony and Microsoft can court enthusiasts with premium machines, but a generation cannot survive purely on the people who will buy anything on day one.
The mass market has always been the real prize, and the mass market does not care about every “whizzbang” feature if the final price feels absurd.
For example, the Vita was, in many ways, a lovely machine. It also arrived carrying costs and ideas that did not all translate into must-have value.
The OLED screen was worth admiring, the rear touchpad was at least interesting, and the proprietary memory cards were difficult to defend.
Sony made a handheld that seemed designed to prove how advanced it was, when the market may have been happier with a cheaper, cleaner PSP2 that solved the obvious problem.
Which Features Are Actually Worth Protecting?
I am happy to lose features for a lower price, but there is a difference between removing excess and selling people an obviously compromised machine.
Nobody wants a PS6 that ships with unusable storage, weak memory, or a design that forces developers into awkward contortions for the next seven years.
I would not compromise on consistent performance, backwards compatibility, or enough built-in storage to make the console practical from day one, especially now that discs often amount to little more than ownership keys for enormous installs.
A console with 256GB of practical space would not feel affordable; it would feel like a bill waiting to happen. You would save money at the checkout, then spend it again the moment two modern games filled the drive.
I do not want a console starved of storage just to advertise a lower price, but I do not need the other extreme either. Give me enough to make the console practical from day one, and I can add more space later if I actually need it.
The features I would question are the ones that make better marketing copy than daily experience.
Does every controller need another expensive sensory trick on top of haptic feedback and adaptive triggers?
How much should I pay for dedicated hardware built to push ray tracing and path tracing further when I already struggle to notice some graphical upgrades without putting two screenshots next to each other?
Do I need every game chasing ever more elaborate reflections, lighting, and visual effects if the cost of building a machine capable of producing them keeps climbing?
I would ask the same about AI hardware, enormous amounts of memory, increasingly elaborate cooling systems, and the pursuit of a smaller or more striking console design when a slightly less ambitious box could be cheaper to build.
I would not want the disc drive to disappear either (physical games matter too much for that), though I could accept a detachable one if that is what keeps the option alive.
None of these technologies are inherently pointless, and some could eventually transform games in ways I cannot predict. I just do not think every technical possibility automatically deserves to become part of the price everyone has to pay.
The lesson Vita gave us is not “never innovate,” but that innovation has to earn its cost.
The question now is how far you would take that bargain. How many console features would you give up for a lower price?
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