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PS4

For months, the rumor mill has churned with predictions that Sony would launch a new, college-stop PlayStation four system with improved graphics, potentially larger storage, and peradventure support for UltraHD (aka 4K) Blu-ray discs. At present the company has confirmed these rumors, only says it won't show the console at E3 this yr.

Andrew House, president and grouping CEO of Sony Interactive Amusement, has confirmed that the PS4K / PS4 Neo / PS four.5 will be more expensive than the current version of the PlayStation four, which retails for $350. This actually makes a fair chip of sense — if Sony is striking reset on the platform'south capabilities, we'd expect the console to come in around $400 at the to the lowest degree.

Sony, even so, isn't planning to phase out the PS4. "It [the PS4 Neo] is intended to sit down alongside and complement the standard PS4," Firm told the Fiscal Times. "We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle."

This quote suggests that the cost gap between the two variants could exist 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 notwithstanding paying for the new architecture and GPU. The new panel is said to target users with 4K content who want access to college resolutions, but the platform won't be shown at E3 this year. According to House, that's because "We desire to ensure nosotros take a total range of the all-time experiences on the new arrangement that we can showcase in their entirety."

Business firm too 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 crave that all games continue to support the standard PS4, simply expects that the vast majority volition support the newer variant as well.

The PS4 Neo is expected to be profitable on launch day, like the PS4 before it, and rumors suggest information technology will pack significantly upgraded hardware. The GPU is more-or-less confirmed equally a variant of AMD'south upcoming Polaris compages, with upwardly to double the GPU cores and other improvements associated with 14nm, while the CPU is either an upgraded variant of the PS4's Jaguar SoC, with a xxx% clock speed improvement, or a rumored "Zen Low-cal" cadre of unknown capabilities. The 14nm die shrink for Jaguar seems more likely, but until Sony confirms the details we won't know for certain.

PS4-SoC1

The PS4's current SoC

There's no word on whether Sony will launch the platform at the aforementioned time it debuts its PS VR, simply Firm confirmed that the PS VR will support both platforms, non but the PlayStation 4 Neo. He likewise implied that customer preference for the so-chosen "iPhone model," in which a manufacturer supports a limited number of hardware configurations at any given time, is the futurity of Sony's console development. The focus on Day 1 profitability is one reason why neither the Xbox 1 or PS4 offered as much comeback over their predecessors as panel gamers might take liked — Sony took an accented hammering on the PS3 when it launched, losing upwardly of $300 on every single panel sale. Microsoft didn't take almost as much of a hit, merely still lost money on the Xbox 360. It'south much harder to finance cut-border process nodes or large-die SoCs when the console needs to make coin straight out of the gate.