Sony patent hints PS6 could ditch liquid metal cooling for good

A Sony patent filed in early 2026 and published in April describes a revised heat sink design that could show up in the PS6 — and it points toward ditching the liquid metal cooling system that caused headaches throughout the PS5's lifespan.

The patent, surfaced by Tech4Gamers, covers an electronic device that "can improve cooling capacity of a heating element built into an electronic device disposed in a plurality of postures" — meaning it's designed to handle heat efficiently whether the console sits horizontally or vertically. That detail matters, because one of the persistent theories around early PS5 overheating was that running the console upright let liquid metal migrate and pool on the motherboard. Sony never officially confirmed that as the cause, but the circumstantial evidence was hard to ignore.

The PS5 launched with a liquid metal thermal interface between the CPU and heat sink — a more exotic solution than the thermal paste used in most consumer electronics, and one that promised better heat transfer. In practice, some early units developed leaks, and the vertical orientation debate ran hot for years in repair communities. Sony quietly addressed it without ever saying so: when the PS5 Slim and PS5 Pro arrived, teardowns revealed redesigned heat sinks with deeper grooves and altered application patterns that reduced the risk of spills. It was a fix in everything but name.

No confirmation exists that this new patent will actually land in the PS6, and Sony patents plenty of things that never ship. But if any version of the PS6 turns out to be a handheld — a possibility that's been floated — liquid metal cooling would be a serious liability in a device that moves around constantly. A conventional liquid cooling loop with better heat transfer efficiency, as the patent describes, would be a cleaner solution all around.