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The PlayStation 6 could be the most expensive mainstream console Sony has ever shipped — and the culprit isn’t the graphics chip. According to hardware leaker KeplerL2, the console’s RAM and NAND flash storage alone now cost Sony more than $680 per unit. That’s before the processor, motherboard, cooling, power supply, or case enter the picture.
To put that in perspective, a standard PS5 with 1TB of storage currently sells for $649.99 in the US. If the claim holds, just two components inside the next PlayStation would cost Sony more than an entire current-gen console does at retail.
The numbers have been climbing all year. KeplerL2’s earlier estimates put the PS6’s total bill of materials at roughly $760 back in March, then near $960 by mid-year. The new figure appeared in a NeoGAF discussion where the leaker pushed back on the idea that Sony could subsidize the console down to a $680 retail price — “RAM + NAND alone is over $680,” he wrote.
The reason isn’t a PlayStation problem. It’s an AI problem. Data centers building AI hardware are buying up huge volumes of DRAM and NAND, and memory prices across the industry have spiked as a result. GDDR7 memory — reportedly planned for the PS6 on a 160-bit bus, with configurations up to 40GB (30GB considered more likely) — was projected to cost about $3 per gigabyte when Sony and Microsoft started designing their next console chips. Today it runs roughly $20 to $23 per gigabyte.
