PlayStation 6, Xbox Next RAM May Not Get Doubled Over Their Predecessors, as Storage and Software Will Do the Grunt Work

The PlayStation 6 and Next Xbox may not get double the RAM of current-generation systems as it may essentially be useless due to some reasons.

Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter recently commented on the amount of RAM next-generation consoles are expected to have. He doesn't think it will be doubled over the 16 GB of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, as memory costs aren't decreasing significantly, and adding an excessive amount of memory would be economically viable. Storage and software-based solutions have already seen a generational leap in the current generation of consoles, and they will likely continue doing the grunt work in the next generation as well.

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This, however, doesn't mean that the PlayStation 6 and Xbox Next won't have more RAM than their predecessors, and the Xbox Next will likely have more than Sony's console if Microsoft makes its console more of a PC. Still, console manufacturers are likely going to take a more holistic approach to console design, as highlighted by the PlayStation 5 Pro, which will not feature double the GPU performance of the base model but will make up for it with software-based solutions like the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution upscaler.

Talking about how much RAM the PlayStation 6 and the Xbox Next may need, Alexander Battaglia made some interesting comments, highlighting how there's a limitation in the production side that limits how much VRAM is actually needed. Filling the 16 GB RAM of the current generation consoles requires a huge amount of work, and filling more than that would require developers, for example, to go for some static solutions that would feature some unique special effects that would only show up once during a game. We are reaching a point of stagnation that may last a decade, where developers will have to figure out how much VRAM past a certain point will be necessary, and development will