Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and President Andrew House, in an interview with the Financial Times, has said that the new model PlayStation 4, officially codenamed Neo, does exist.
The PlayStation Neo, alternatively called the PS4K, PS4.5, will feature 4K resolution and smoother graphics.
While House did not announce a price, he did say that the new system will not replace the current PS4 model, but rather the two will co-exist.
"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4. We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle."
A price was not named, but we can expect the Neo will cost more than the current model. While I can only assume the Neo will launch at $399 while the current model remains at $349, nothing was said. It is possible (though unlikely) the current PS4 will drop to $299 and the Neo will launch at $349.
Seems unlikely we'll hear more about the Neo anytime soon, however, as House stated that it will not be shown at E3 next week.
“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 said.
He also addressed gamers' growing concerns for supported games for PlayStation 4 base going forward.
"All games will support the standard PS4 and we anticipate all or a very large majority of games will also support the high-end PS4."
While this is sure to put many gamers' minds at ease, it brings a certain question to mind: will games support Neo?" Its kind of the opposite of the initial question about games supporting the base model, just how many games will support Neo? Previously we'd heard that Sony would require all games be developed for both systems but this statement leads me to believe that there may well be some games that are PS4-base exclusive. While I highly doubt such a thing will happen, the question is on my mind.
The last thing House addressed is the potential burden new hardware upgrades will bring to developers having to simultaneously develop for two systems, and possibly four if they want to be cross-platform with Xbox's current and rumored new hardware. House claimed it would only require a "small but manageable" amount of extra legwork to develop for the two PlayStation consoles side by side.
When House explained the new strategy of upgrading system hardware early in the life cycle he said,
"The consumer is attuned to a different cadence of innovation in technology thanks in great part for the upgrades cadence on mobile phones or PCs."
I really dislike that statement. Citing cell phone business as credible when speaking about upgrading console hardware just doesn't jive with me. I understand that cell phone companies have been doing this for years, but when you obtain a new cell phone, you don't outright buy the phone with the contract. You lease it or pay for it as part of your monthly bill. The same is not true of video game consoles. Sony isn't interested in contracting PlayStation systems to consumers, consoles have to be bought outright.
Besides breaking precedent that a console will be ubiquitous across the board and will last for around 6-7 years without much change, aside from form-factor changes, there's never been two different SKUs of a system with different internal hardware existing in a single ecosystem.
Sony is still playing this one very close to the chest, undoubtedly there are things we don't know. I'm interested in what they have to say next on the topic, but it seems we won't hear anything about that until after E3 at the earliest.
