PS6 Could Finally Fix One of PlayStation's Biggest Problems That PS5 Apparently Still Can’t

Sony still hasn’t officially confirmed the existence of the PlayStation 6, but leaks and rumors around the next-gen console have been floating for a while. Most reports currently point toward a possible 2027 launch window, although discussions around hardware upgrades and next-gen capabilities are already heating up online.

Now, a fresh round of testing from Digital Foundry may have revealed one major thing the PS6 could finally solve: proper PlayStation 3 emulation (via Wccftech).

PS5 reportedly struggles badly with heavier PS3 games

Using Linux on PS5 and the popular RPCS3 emulator, Digital Foundry has tested multiple PlayStation 3 games directly on the PlayStation 5 to see how far Sony’s current hardware could realistically go with native PS3 emulation.

The results were honestly mixed. Some lighter PS3 titles like Ridge Racer 7, Resistance: Fall of Man, and Heavenly Sword reportedly ran surprisingly well with improved resolutions and smoother performance.

But things apparently fell apart once games started heavily relying on the PS3’s notoriously complicated Cell processor architecture.

Titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Killzone 2, Killzone 3, and God of War: Ascension suffered from major performance problems tied directly to CPU bottlenecks.

However, increasing resolution barely impacted frame rates in many cases, which strongly suggests the GPU was not the issue here at all.

PS6’s rumored Zen 6 CPU could finally unlock full PS3 emulation

According to the testing, the main problem comes down to the PS5’s CPU simply lacking enough horsepower to properly emulate the PS3’s SPU-heavy workloads at full speed.

Some games reportedly improved immediately once certain SPU-driven effects were disabled, including advanced anti-aliasing and post-processing systems.

That is exactly why Digital Foundry believes the rumored Zen 6-based CPU expected inside the PlayStation 6 could finally provide enough performance headroom for proper native PS3 emulation. This isn’t the first test Digital Foundry did, and recently, they ran Cyberpunk 2077 with Path Tracing on PS5.

For years, PlayStation fans have been asking Sony to move beyond cloud streaming for classic PS3 games. And honestly, this testing may explain why Sony still has not fully delivered that yet.

If these findings are accurate, the PS6 could quietly become the first PlayStation console powerful enough to properly emulate nearly every previous PlayStation generation locally from day one.