Noted technology tipster, Kepler L2, believes that the Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) engineering team has finalized the design of a PlayStation 6 (PS6) system-on-chip (SoC)—insider information was shared on the NeoGAF forum (a popular computer game discussion board) late last week. It would be natural to assume that Sony's gaming division is deep into the process of developing a follow-up to its PlayStation 5 home console, but Kepler L2's fresh revelation points to surprisingly advanced progress. Insider sources point to the PS6's chip design being: "complete and in pre-silicon validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year."

Industry experts have analyzed PlayStation development cycles of days past—history has demonstrated a pattern of the A0 tapeout phase reaching completion around two years before the rollout of finalized products at retail. Kepler L2 reckons that this pattern will be repeated—indicating a possible launch of PlayStation by 2027. The rumored PS6 chipset has been linked to AMD's "gfx13" target—everyone's favorite Team Red tipster posits that Sony engineers are working with a "fork" of this next-gen "UDNA" graphics technology. The rumor mill has generated additional PS6 SoC-related internet chatter—last Friday, Chiphell alleged a possible adoption of Team Red's X3 V-cache technology.

Users familiar with the gaming-related, mainstay forum NeoGAF have been put through a convoluted last days, to say the least. Over the weekend, users found themselves unable to access the popular forums, due to what was being called "scheduled maintenance". However, NeoGAF being a forum, details have surfaced regarding exactly why the popular web mainstay for gamers was down. Accusations sprung up against NeoGAF Tyler 'Evilore' Malka of having sexually assaulted Texas filmmaker Ima Leupp, which in turn led to an exodus of staff, at odds with what they legitimately see as inexcusable (even if as of yet unproven) conduct - and without staff, there's really no way to run a forum such as NeoGAF.