[Updated] Sony officially confirms 4K ready Playstation - "PS4 Neo"

[kameshss]

Sony has confirmed the existence of PlayStation 4 Neo, an upgraded version of the current PlayStation 4 hardware. Earlier last month we had a peak of what Sony is going to do with it's next Playstation. And found some of the specs like the one below:

 

Original PS4
CPU: 8 Jaguar Cores at 1.6 GHz
GPU: AMD GCN, 18 CUs at 800 MHz (equivalent to Radeon HD 7850)
Memory: 8 GB GDDR5, 176 GB/s
 
NEO
CPU: 8 Jaguar Cores at 2.1 GHz
GPU: Improved AMD GCN, 36 CUs at 911 MHz (possibly built on Polaris10 Ellesmere?)
Memory: 8 GB GDDR5, 218 GB/s

 

Now the Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House confirmed that the Playstation 4 Neo is indeed real. Both the Playstation 4 and 4 Neo will support the Sony VR headset. 

 

 

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Sony officially confirms the PlayStation 4K, saying it's targeting 'hardcore gamers' and will have full backward and forward compatibility

 

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E3 2016 - Sony has officially confirmed the PlayStation 4K (PS4 Neo, PS4.5) is in fact real, but it won't be shown at E3 2016.

 

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Sony Interactive Entertainment President Andrew House confirmed the PlayStation 4K in a recent interview with Financial Times, saying the console is targeted at "hardcore gamers", and asserting the "PS4 Neo" will indeed support 4K resolution. The "high-end" PlayStation 4K will be more expensive then the $350 PS4.
 
House also confirmed the PS4K won't replace existing PS4s, instead complimenting the systems in a new ecosystem. "It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4. We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle," he said. House went on to announce that the PlayStation 4K will be fully backward compatible with all existing PS4 games, confirming past reports. "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," he said. 
 
As for an official reveal, the PS4K won't be shown off at E3 because Sony doesn't yet have enough content for the console. "We want to ensure we have a full range of the best experiences on the new system that we can showcase in their entirety," he said. We'll likely see an official announcement at Gamescom in the Fall.

 

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The 4K-ready PS4 Neo won't have its own games library. The PS4K will play all existing PS4 games and unlock exclusive 4K upscaled resolution across certain games. The way it works is that every future PS4 game will need to have two modes: a "Neo Mode" and a "Standard Mode". Normal PS4's will play games in Standard Mode, and the PS4K will use its upgraded hardware to access Neo Mode for improved 4K visuals. PS4Ks can access Standard Mode, and the Neo Mode is optional. 

 

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The PS4K's new two format structure puts a burden on developers, as they will now have to essentially make two different versions of their games (a Neo Mode and Standard Mode). Some devs are even calling it a "gigantic pain in the ass."
 
The Sony president also affirms that developers won't have a hard time optimizing their games with Neo Mode functionality, and that the work will be "small, but manageable".

 

Source: TweakTown, Financial Times, Video Gamer, TheVerge.

 

Cut to the Chase

 

1. When it'll be available? - Don't know.
2. Name of the device - PS4 Neo (probably)
3. What's the price? - Price will be higher than regular PS4. (No words on it yet)
4. Is it going to appear on E3? - Nope.
5. Compatibility? - Will be fully backward compatible with existing PS4 games.
6. Won't have exclusive games library
7. Natively supports PlayStation VR
8. Plays 4K UHD Blu-ray/regular Blu-ray discs
9. Upscales 1080p to 4K
10. Improved hardware specs including an AMD Polaris 10 GPU
11. All forthcoming PS4 games will support PS4K and PS4
12. PS4K games to run at 1080p minimum

[minibois]

"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4."

So Sony wants people to buy both their Playstation 4 consoles, because..? Can the PS4 Neo not do everything the regular PS4 can?

[Huntsman]

So the console tribe now has a better PC...

[GarnetDevil]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4."

So Sony wants people to buy both their Playstation 4 consoles, because..? Can the PS4 Neo not do everything the regular PS4 can?

I think they will cut the PS4's price down when the PS4 Neo is released

[minibois]

4 minutes ago, GarnetDevil said:

I think they will cut the PS4's price down when the PS4 Neo is released

Oh, so they mean the PS4 Neo will compliment the regular PS4 on the shelves of stores, not compliment it in people's living room.. I get it.

[GarnetDevil]

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Oh, so they mean the PS4 Neo will compliment the regular PS4 on the shelves of stores, not compliment it in people's living room.. I get it.

They want to keep the $199 PS4 dream alive imo

[ohitsluca]

11 minutes ago, Minibois said:

"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4."

So Sony wants people to buy both their Playstation 4 consoles, because..? Can the PS4 Neo not do everything the regular PS4 can?

I think they mean sit along side the PS4 in their current product lineup. Buyers can either get the PS4 at a lower price with less performance, or the PS4 'Neo' at a higher price with better performance. I'd guess game development will be similar so it will be the same game for each console, and if you have the Neo you will get higher resolutions and/or framerates.

edit: sorry, just saw someone else already pointed that out

[ohitsluca]

Also, did they actually confirm anywhere this console is designed for 4K? Or was that just the article saying 4K over and over for no reason. I really don't think they will be achieving 4K with this hardware

[Castdeath97]

Sony shoot itself on the foot. 

[kameshss]

1 minute ago, ohitsluca said:

Also, did they actually confirm anywhere this console is designed for 4K? Or was that just the article saying 4K over and over for no reason. I really don't think they will be achieving 4K with this hardware

That is not the actual specs. Its just a rumored specs. You can check this article for more http://goo.gl/uI4GlL

[VagabondWraith]

So if this supports 4K, does this mean it will have a 4K BD-ROM, or just support 4K playback?

[Rupe]

16 minutes ago, Minibois said:

"It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4."

So Sony wants people to buy both their Playstation 4 consoles, because..? Can the PS4 Neo not do everything the regular PS4 can?

This makes sense, suggesting there not phasing out the PS4 for this newer version, presumably there won't be any PS4 neo exclusives, They probably run the same software which will recieve the same updates etc etc.

[qwertywarrior]

this is an extremely stupid

ive seen this before i know what road they are going down to

this is bad news to everyone

[AHaskin14]

Gotta love "improved" compute units....

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

2 minutes ago, Rupe said:

This makes sense, suggesting there not phasing out the PS4 for this newer version, presumably there won't be any PS4 neo exclusives, They probably run the same software which will recieve the same updates etc etc.

That is nice and all, but the cross-compatibility between system for the games and software (in particular with the retail disks), will still be a pain to program.

[Rupe]

1 minute ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is nice and all, but the cross-compatibility between system for the games and software (in particular with the retail disks), will still be a pain to program.

I'm sure Sony has spent a long time making sure this wont be the case in the design of the Neo. The components look almost the same just faster clock speeds on the Neo. Of course if it is the case that devs have to put any kind of significant effort into making sure it works on both consoles then that would be a misstep on Sonys part, but i'm sure they would of covered there bases on that one.

[Trixanity]

They should wait and secure some Zen cores and some GDDR5X at least. That would make it an excellent upgrade.

[Dabombinable]

So...the Neo will still be using a die shrunk version of this outdated CMT APU? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_(microarchitecture)

 

I know that 4K is more GPU than CPU heavy, but it'd really help out in multiplayer games, and indeed with AI in single player games, if they weren't planning to keep on using Jaguar APU, and actually planned on using Zen. Because 4 hyperthreaded Zen cores would take up less die space, leaving more room for an even larger GPU, and would be more efficient meaning it would put out less heat (going of what we know so far).

[Dabombinable]

3 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

They should wait and secure some Zen cores and some GDDR5X at least. That would make it an excellent upgrade.

GDDR5X is from what I can tell more expensive and in relatively short supply.

[Trixanity]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

GDDR5X is from what I can tell more expensive and in relatively short supply.

It is. Right now. But if they wait, as I said, the price will drop and the speeds increase and the stock will be normalized.

By the time Zen is ready for a custom SoC, GDDR5X should be closer to GDDR5 in price but also close to double the performance.

[AlexGoesHigh]

17 minutes ago, Castdeath97 said:

Sony shoot itself on the foot. 

Not really they are forcing the big guys (EA, ubi, activision, etc) to support both, indies will probably be told that their game should render at 4k in the new console, also they will most likely say games will work with both consoles during the entire console life cycle until PS5 or whatever they will call it.

 

Also a price drop to sub 300$ on the original PS4 would be a nice play to calm down those that will critic this move.

 

13 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

That is nice and all, but the cross-compatibility between system for the games and software (in particular with the retail disks), will still be a pain to program.

99.9% sure the software will be the same, so they are just going to do a PC and up the graphics for PS4k. As for the disk, well either they will load two sets of textures or downsample the PS4k textures in the engine to run better on the PS4, everything else can be shared easily. 

[Castdeath97]

1 minute ago, AlexGoesHigh said:

Not really they are forcing the big guys (EA, ubi, activision, etc) to support both, indies will probably be told that their game should render at 4k in the new console, also they will most likely say games will work with both consoles during the entire console life cycle until PS5 or whatever they will call it.

 

Also a price drop to sub 300$ on the original PS4 would be a nice play to calm down those that will critic this move.

 

99.9% sure the software will be the same, so they are just going to do a PC and up the graphics for PS4k. As for the disk, well either they will load two sets of textures or downsample the PS4k textures in the engine to run better on the PS4, everything else can be shared easily. 

Judging by the kind of broken releases I see from triple A devs I'm betting they would screw up the optimisation for one of the consoles. There is a finite amount of resources and these resources will have to be split up for two consoles now for every major release rather than one; a compromise has to be made more or less. 

[escape093]

This is the PS4 we should have gotten back in 2013.

[Kobathor]

35 minutes ago, ohitsluca said:

Also, did they actually confirm anywhere this console is designed for 4K? Or was that just the article saying 4K over and over for no reason. I really don't think they will be achieving 4K with this hardware

It can output a 4k video signal over HDMI 2.0 IIRC. No, the PS4 Neo won't be able to game at 4k. Maybe some casual games. 

[captain cactus]

So 36 compute units, with the 64 stream processors per CU, that gives 2304 stream processors.

 

That's the same as the RX480. We know the price of that when it's sold separately, so you can be guaranteed that Sony got that GPU at a nice price reduction since they only need the GPU, not the entire card.

 

That's nice, if the thing costs around $500 it'll finally be something worthy of getting.