HiGame

For months, the rumor mill has churned with predictions that Sony would launch a new, higher-end PlayStation 4 system with improved graphics, potentially larger storage, and possibly support for UltraHD (aka 4K) Blu-ray discs. Now the company has confirmed these rumors, but says it won’t show the console at E3 this year.

Andrew House, president and group CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, has confirmed that the PS4K / PS4 Neo / PS 4.5 will be more expensive than the current version of the PlayStation 4, which retails for $350. This actually makes a fair bit of sense — if Sony is hitting reset on the platform’s capabilities, we’d expect the console to come in around $400 at the least.

Sony, however, isn’t planning to phase out the PS4. “It [the PS4 Neo] is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4,” House told the Financial Times. “We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle.”
This quote suggests that the price gap between the two variants could be larger than just $50. A $350 / $400 split makes sense if Sony wants to push end-users to the newer version as quickly as possible, while $350 / $450 or $350 / $500 might allow higher overall margins while still paying for the new architecture and GPU. The new console is said to target users with 4K content who want access to higher resolutions, but the platform won’t be shown at E3 this year. According to House, that’s because “We want to ensure we have a full range of the best experiences on the new system that we can showcase in their entirety.”

House also stated that all games would be supported on both platforms and that supporting the newer PS4 would create a small amount of additional work, but nothing too difficult. Sony will require that all games continue to support the standard PS4, but expects that the vast majority will support the newer variant as well.


more...