A couple of weeks ago Eurogamer confirmed that Sony was working on an PS4 with 4K capabilities and what people could expect from it. Today Giant Bomb was able to verify some of what Eurogamer speculated and give more information on the device.
The PlayStation 4K, codenamed NEO, will feature an upgraded GPU, CPU and more memory, you can see the breakdown of the NEO’s potential specs in the image below from Giant Bomb.
With that extra power the NEO will be able to provide a more stable frame rate and a higher visual fidelity to games running at 1080p on HDTVs as well as output in 4K. However games will not be required to be run natively in 4K. Sony is allowing developers some flexibility on how the 4K resolution is achieved.
In the docs Giant Bomb received Sony stresses that the NEO will exist alongside the original PS4, not supplant it. To prevent the NEO from fracturing the market Sony says that there will be no NEO-exclusive titles or content and all future titles will be required to have a “Base Mode” for the original PS4 and a “NEO Mode” which will utilize the NEO’s extra power. Players will be able to keep all purchases made on the PS4. The one place Sony is not budging is frame-rate, the “NEO Mode” must have a the same or higher frame rate than the standard version.
Along with that the NEO will share the same user environment, meaning that everything that you would find on the PS4 (PSN, PlayStation Store, ect.) the NEO will share, including online play.
The report goes on to say that games released from October forward will be required to have the new “NEO Mode”. Games released before October can add the compatibility at the developer’s discretion. The report also states that developers are “allowed to launch NEO-ready games before the NEO itself releases.”
Despite the October date for new PS4 games, currently the NEO doesn’t have a release date, but in an earlier report we said that Sony could announce the NEO before the release of PlayStation VR.
The price of the NEO is also up in the air, but according to Giant Bomb earlier reports say that it will be $399.