One year ago, during PlayStation’s 2025 State of Play, Sony announced their Pulse Elevate speakers. A set of two, wireless gaming-focused speakers for the home console and desktop experience alike. Complimenting their in-house line of earbuds, the speakers were to hit shelves this Thursday. With days to go, Sony updated the Pulse’s announcement page to say that they have been delayed.
“As part of our ongoing quality testing of Pulse Elevate speakers, we have identified a production issue with the product and have made the decision to delay the launch,” reads the update. “The additional time will allow us to ensure the product will deliver the experience we intended for our players. We apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience and understanding. We look forward to bringing Pulse Elevate to players soon.”
Similar to the Pulse brand of earbuds, the Pulse Elevate speakers were designed with the PlayStation 5 and Portal in mind, but could pair with PC, Mac and even mobile gaming experiences. The product promised to blast 3D audio from compatible PlayStation games and a built-in mic with AI-powered noise reduction. The original release date was November 12th, with pre-orders opening in September and hardware influencers seemingly receiving their copies. No new timeline, release date or refund policy has been announced from this delay.
With Grand Theft Auto VI just a few blocks away, and the PlayStation the primary console to play it on, this should be an exceptionally stellar holiday season for Sony. Instead, between trade wars, component shortages, rising costs and AI RAM hoarding, Sony seems unable to keep up with demand. Just last week the company unveiled an unusual buyback program, an effort to keep these gizmos circulating amid difficult stock.
What exactly spurred the Pulse delay is unspecified. Sony was traditionally a consumer tech, home entertainment focused company, so this isn’t their first rodeo. In recent years, however, the company has seemingly drifted towards producing the media consumed on television instead of the television itself, following years of more affordable options in the industry. This is made most clear in their decision to abandon physical discs, printing that propriety format being the reason PlayStation exists in the first place.
