Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden thinks Sony's next console shouldn't win on horsepower. Speaking about the PS6, Layden argued the machine doesn't need more power — and that true innovation would be making a $300 console again, per GamesRadar+.

"What the company needs to do is do what it's never done," Layden said, as reported by GamesRadar+.

It's a pointed take from someone who ran PlayStation's US operations through some of its most successful generations. The industry's default playbook for a new console cycle is a teraflop arms race and a launch price to match — Layden is suggesting Sony break that pattern entirely and compete on accessibility instead.

The math behind the idea is hard to ignore. Console prices have crept upward across the current generation, with mid-cycle hardware pushing well past historical norms. A $300 PS6 would undercut that trend dramatically and widen the funnel of players who can get in at launch — a bet that reach matters more than raw specs in a market where graphical gains are increasingly subtle. Whether Sony's hardware economics could ever support that price is another question, but the argument lands at a moment when players are visibly fatigued by rising costs.