WSJ on PS4K:
Sony Corp. is planning to sell a more powerful version of its PlayStation 4 machine to handle higher-end game experiences, including virtual reality, people familiar with the matter said, while continuing production of its existing console that has so far sold more than 36 million units world-wide.

Existing PlayStation 4 owners would need to buy the new model to take full advantage of the enhanced graphics and power, though it is likely that the current model and the coming one would share the same software catalog, one of the people said.

The new console would be announced before the planned October release of the PlayStation VR, Sony’s new virtual-reality headset…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/sony-plans-new-playstation-for-graphics-heavy-games-1459152941


UPDATE:

By Moris Go To PostStory at GiantBomb.com


Today, multiple sources have confirmed for us details of the project, which is internally referred to as the NEO. No price was provided, but previous reports indicate that the NEO would sell at $399.

The NEO will feature a higher clock speed than the original PS4, an improved GPU, and higher bandwidth on the memory. The documents we've received note that the HDD in the NEO is the same as that in the original PlayStation 4, but it's not clear if that means in terms of capacity or connection speed. Starting in October, every PS4 game is required to ship with both a “Base Mode” which will run on the currently available PS4 and a “NEO Mode” for use on the new console.

The NEO will not supplant the current PS4, but will exist alongside of it and use the same user environment.

Sony seems committed to keeping the NEO and the original PS4 player bases connected. As such, there will be no NEO-only games, and Sony will not let developers separate NEO users from original PS4 players while playing on PSN. Likewise, Sony explicitly and repeatedly states that developers cannot offer exclusive gameplay options or special unlockables for NEO players—so don’t expect NEO owners to get a level editor or a special Rocket League car that you won’t have access to on your original PS4.

That said, so long as both systems have the same feature, the NEO can run an improved version. A local co-op game that features four players on the base PS4 could offer an eight player co-op mode on the NEO, for instance. But again, don't expect those differences to transfer to online modes.

PS4 Base and NEO versions of a game will also need to have parity with regard to peripheral support. So don’t expect NEO Games to have exclusive VR modes. Sony makes no mention of PlayStation VR in the docs we've seen, so it's hard to know what that means for the persistent rumors that this upgraded PS4 will be able to support PSVR without the "breakout box" that the headset ships with. That said, so long as the NEO's upgrades apply to PSVR games, developers should be able to get even more performance out of Sony's VR headset.

Games released previous to the NEO can take advantage of this hardware upgrade, but only if developers decide to patch their titles.
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