Upgraded PlayStation 4 is reportedly codenamed Neo, has improved hardware but no exclusive games

[midian182]

New information about the upgraded PlayStation 4 has been revealed. Often referred to as the PS4.5 or PS4K, the new console is codenamed Neo, will come with improved specs and won’t have any exclusive games, according to a report from Giant Bomb.

The Neo, which is rumored to sell for $400, will have a snappier CPU than the PS4, running at 2.1 GHz rather than 1.6 GHZ. The GPU is also improved, and the RAM is faster. The HDD is said to be the same as the one in the PS4, but it’s unclear if this means the capacity or disk speed.

	Original PS4	NEO
CPU	8 Jaguar Cores at 1.6 GHz	8 Jaguar Cores at 2.1 GHz
GPU	AMD GCN, 18 CUs at 800 MHz	Improved AMD GCN, 36 CUs at 911 MHz
Memory	8 GB GDDR5, 176 GB/s	8 GB GDDR5, 218 GB/s

Rather than driving a wedge between the two consoles, Sony has decided there won’t be any games made that will work exclusively on the Neo. Instead, starting in October, every PS4 title will be required to ship with two different modes – one for the original PS4 and one for the upgraded console.

'Neo mode' will take advantage of the superior hardware to increase and stabilize frame rates and offer “higher visual fidelity.” The Neo will be capable of outputting 4K resolutions, but games don’t have to be 4K native.

While owners of 4K TVs can expect to see some games upscaled to fit the resolution, Sony is adamant that all titles will have frame rates that meet or exceed the frame rate of the game on the original PS4.

Sony doesn’t want the Neo to be seen as replacement for the PS4, but as system that exists alongside it. There will be no exclusive unlockables or gameplay options in titles on the Neo, it will use the same PSN store (with any previous purchases carrying over), and owners of both consoles will be able to play alongside each other in multiplayer matches. However, the improved hardware means games that offer four-player local co-op on the PS4 could support eight players on the Neo.

There has been speculation that the Neo would somehow be directly linked to the PlayStation VR, which also uses a Matrix themed codename - ‘Morpheus.’ But it seems this isn’t the case. According to Game Bomb: “PS4 Base and NEO versions of a game will also need to have parity with regard to peripheral support.” So, if a game doesn’t have a VR mode for the PS4, it won’t have one for the Neo. That said, assuming there’s a Neo mode for PSVR titles, the new console could offer an improved virtual reality experience.

The report also states that it will be possible to patch older PS4 titles to give them a Neo mode. And while devs can ship Neo-ready games before the console launches, all titles released in late Septemeber will require a day one patch that upgrades them to Neo standards.

While all the Neo-mode rules for games come into effect in October, there’s no guarantee this will be the month that the new console arrives. It’s possible that Sony could hold out and release the Neo in mid-November like it did with the PS4, right when everyone is looking for Christmas presents.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/64491-upgraded-playstation-4-reportedly-codenamed-neo-has-improved.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I can see it now, plenty of games that cant keep 30FPS on a regular ps4, because the devs built the game around neo mode and made the regular version at the last minute.

Or pretty much no games using the better hardware.

 

[seefizzle]

What a sloppy mess. Is this the generation that consoles die completely? Has there ever been a .5 console release that's been successful?

If I was a real hardcore gamer... I'd be weighing the cost of a new console and a half a$$ VR implementation that's coming down the pipes against a nice gaming computer and better VR right now. VR could be the nail in the coffin for traditional consoles.

 

[Puiu]

What a sloppy mess. Is this the generation that consoles die completely? Has there ever been a .5 console release that's been successful?

If I was a real hardcore gamer... I'd be weighing the cost of a new console and a half a$$ VR implementation that's coming down the pipes against a nice gaming computer and better VR right now. VR could be the nail in the coffin for traditional consoles.

I can see this working fairly well. With nintendo launching a new console that's most likely still underpowered and MS fidgeting around trying to find an answer to the hole they dug themselves into, a new and improved PS4 can cement Sony's position as the best platform for years to come.

And the reason we haven't seen any successful .5 releases was because of the difficulty of maintaining parity with the vanilla version. The x86 CPU and GCN GPU are much easily upgradeable and it will only require a minimum amount of work for the devs to make the older games work properly on both systems. (just a settings difference like on a PC)

But Sony must make sure that both systems have the same games or else it will fail.

 

[fimbles]

What a sloppy mess. Is this the generation that consoles die completely? Has there ever been a .5 console release that's been successful?

Game boy color maybe?

 

[Joe Seijo]

I used to play on my PS4 quite a bit. But that all ended when I recently built myself a gaming PC using the i7-6700k CPU and EVGA 980Ti FTW gpu and combined it with a 1440p/144hz gaming monitor. There is just no comparison. I have BF4 for PS4 and PC. The console version is a blurry, stuttery mess with it's low resolution, awful textures and struggling framerates. The PC version looks and plays absolutely beautiful at true 2560x1440 and 144 frames per second. Consoles are still many years away from this type of PC quality graphics and framerates.

 

[TechSam]

Any word on 21:9 support? Thats the only selling point for me if it was.

 

[Uncle Al]

Just another good reason to only support PC based games ....

 

[Arris]

Maybe AMD are moving to only manufacturing GCN parts at 14nm rather than the original custom 7870 28nm the PS4 used, and Sony are using a newer part to sell it as an "Upgrade" but sticking some slightly better ram and faster CPU in at the same time?

Seems daft since the whole point of PCs is that you can customize them and play at different graphical levels depending on your PCs spec. Trying to have customizable games for Consoles seems to me to be at odds with the point of them in the first place.... One spec to build games for making development easier??

 

[gingerbill]

I think it's a good idea and would probably buy one depending on the final details. PS4 has done great in sales and Sony could easily just rest easy with what they have , I think it's a bold move.

 

[Killeak]

Any word on 21:9 support? Thats the only selling point for me if it was.

For a Console... I don't think so. 21:9 is for monitors, not a standard for TVs.

That being said, I got one (LG 34" 3440x1440) and I love it, but even on PC many games doesn't have proper support.

 

[Versutus]

I used to play on my PS4 quite a bit. But that all ended when I recently built myself a gaming PC using the i7-6700k CPU and EVGA 980Ti FTW gpu and combined it with a 1440p/144hz gaming monitor. There is just no comparison. I have BF4 for PS4 and PC. The console version is a blurry, stuttery mess with it's low resolution, awful textures and struggling framerates. The PC version looks and plays absolutely beautiful at true 2560x1440 and 144 frames per second. Consoles are still many years away from this type of PC quality graphics and framerates.

Sorry but this must be a joke. A PS4 is 350€, your pc was 1500-2000?

 

[gingerbill]

I used to play on my PS4 quite a bit. But that all ended when I recently built myself a gaming PC using the i7-6700k CPU and EVGA 980Ti FTW gpu and combined it with a 1440p/144hz gaming monitor. There is just no comparison. I have BF4 for PS4 and PC. The console version is a blurry, stuttery mess with it's low resolution, awful textures and struggling framerates. The PC version looks and plays absolutely beautiful at true 2560x1440 and 144 frames per second. Consoles are still many years away from this type of PC quality graphics and framerates.

Sorry but this must be a joke. A PS4 is 350€, your pc was 1500-2000?

yep in more shocking news his Ferrari his faster than his family car.

Also he is just talking nonsense anyway , BF4 on PS4 is one of the rare games that runs at 60 FPS and looks lovely.

 

[MHMPr]

So right now the PS4 costs $350 and comes with a GPU roughly equivalent to the $125 R7 370, correct?
The specs listed on this rumor resemble the specs for the binned Polaris chip that have been rumored recently, 36 CUs and an "improved" GCN architecture. If this new PS4 is gonna cost $400, could that indicate that this Polaris GPU might be released at around $200, maybe?
That would be great, since I have a R9 380 right now and have been looking into Polaris for an upgrade.

 

[Adhmuz]

yep in more shocking news his Ferrari his faster than his family car.

Also he is just talking nonsense anyway , BF4 on PS4 is one of the rare games that runs at 60 FPS and looks lovely.

You should play it on a PC, you'll change your opinion pretty quickly. It might run occasionally at 60 FPS on PS4 but it doesn't maintain 60 FPS when the games gets hectic. Don't forget how long it took for the game to get all the bugs ironed out which didn't help either on a console barely capable of playing the game to begin with. Having played on both, I can't play it on console ever again, it's just not the same game.

Perhaps with this upgraded PS4 the game will run better, actually, it will run better no question. But you still can't increase the fidelity of the graphics like you can on a PC so this added horse power will be wasted on older tittles if the devs do not feel the need to patch in "Neo" support, with takes time, which cost money, and console are about nothing more than making money.

PCs may cost more, but they last longer, can be upgraded, can do more than just media and games, can be personalized to no ends, and at the end of the day retain more value than a console. So yeah, PCs win, if you chose to believe otherwise that's not my problem.

 

[Puiu]

Maybe AMD are moving to only manufacturing GCN parts at 14nm rather than the original custom 7870 28nm the PS4 used, and Sony are using a newer part to sell it as an "Upgrade" but sticking some slightly better ram and faster CPU in at the same time?

Seems daft since the whole point of PCs is that you can customize them and play at different graphical levels depending on your PCs spec. Trying to have customizable games for Consoles seems to me to be at odds with the point of them in the first place.... One spec to build games for making development easier??

if the rumors are correct, the GPU could be twice as fast. add the faster CPU, extra RAM and extra memory bandwidth and the console could become a very powerful. not good enough for native 4K but it should at least allow for 60 FPS in all games at 1080p.

 

[CaptainTom]

I can see it now, plenty of games that cant keep 30FPS on a regular ps4, because the devs built the game around neo mode and made the regular version at the last minute.

Or pretty much no games using the better hardware.

I just don't see why this would be a problem. Currently the PS4 is a 1080@30 console. Then logically a PS4K with the specs shown above will be a 1080@60/1440+@30 console. Worst case scenario the PS4 will be 900p in a couple games.

 

[CaptainTom]

yep in more shocking news his Ferrari his faster than his family car.

Also he is just talking nonsense anyway , BF4 on PS4 is one of the rare games that runs at 60 FPS and looks lovely.

You should play it on a PC, you'll change your opinion pretty quickly. It might run occasionally at 60 FPS on PS4 but it doesn't maintain 60 FPS when the games gets hectic. Don't forget how long it took for the game to get all the bugs ironed out which didn't help either on a console barely capable of playing the game to begin with. Having played on both, I can't play it on console ever again, it's just not the same game.

Perhaps with this upgraded PS4 the game will run better, actually, it will run better no question. But you still can't increase the fidelity of the graphics like you can on a PC so this added horse power will be wasted on older tittles if the devs do not feel the need to patch in "Neo" support, with takes time, which cost money, and console are about nothing more than making money.

PCs may cost more, but they last longer, can be upgraded, can do more than just media and games, can be personalized to no ends, and at the end of the day retain more value than a console. So yeah, PCs win, if you chose to believe otherwise that's not my problem.

My god you PC circle-jerkers make me laugh so much. BF4 essentially has the same requirements and graphics as BF3 - which launched when the GTX 580 was the strongest card and ran it just fine. The PS4 is stronger than the 580 and subsequently runs BF4 perfectly fine. The only error the devs made was trying to make the MP 60 FPS when the 1.6 GHz x 8 CPU is clearly meant for 30 FPS (In otherwords they should have just maxed it in 1080@30 instead of sacrificing a ton of visual quality for 900@60).


P.S. I game on a 150 Hz monitor maxed out on PC so lol I do know the difference in picture quality, and while my PC looks A LOT better - the PS4 by no means makes your eyes hurt (like the X1 does)

 

[CaptainTom]

Any word on 21:9 support? Thats the only selling point for me if it was.

I wish, but alas consoles (And many PC games for that matter) will not support 21:9 until it is nearly the standard.

 

[Notyou]

yep in more shocking news his Ferrari his faster than his family car.

Also he is just talking nonsense anyway , BF4 on PS4 is one of the rare games that runs at 60 FPS and looks lovely.

You should play it on a PC, you'll change your opinion pretty quickly. It might run occasionally at 60 FPS on PS4 but it doesn't maintain 60 FPS when the games gets hectic. Don't forget how long it took for the game to get all the bugs ironed out which didn't help either on a console barely capable of playing the game to begin with. Having played on both, I can't play it on console ever again, it's just not the same game.

Perhaps with this upgraded PS4 the game will run better, actually, it will run better no question. But you still can't increase the fidelity of the graphics like you can on a PC so this added horse power will be wasted on older tittles if the devs do not feel the need to patch in "Neo" support, with takes time, which cost money, and console are about nothing more than making money.

PCs may cost more, but they last longer, can be upgraded, can do more than just media and games, can be personalized to no ends, and at the end of the day retain more value than a console. So yeah, PCs win, if you chose to believe otherwise that's not my problem.

My god you PC circle-jerkers make me laugh so much. BF4 essentially has the same requirements and graphics as BF3 - which launched when the GTX 580 was the strongest card and ran it just fine. The PS4 is stronger than the 580 and subsequently runs BF4 perfectly fine. The only error the devs made was trying to make the MP 60 FPS when the 1.6 GHz x 8 CPU is clearly meant for 30 FPS (In otherwords they should have just maxed it in 1080@30 instead of sacrificing a ton of visual quality for 900@60).


P.S. I game on a 150 Hz monitor maxed out on PC so lol I do know the difference in picture quality, and while my PC looks A LOT better - the PS4 by no means makes your eyes hurt (like the X1 does)

PS4 stronger then a 580 heard it all now trust me the 580 is the next tier up to the ps4 will run bf4 at high at a locked 60fps it's been proven then even the 480 is more then a match for the ps4.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/MSI/HD_7870_HAWK/images/perfrel_1920.gif

For scale the ps4 would be around 80-85%

 

[lripplinger]

So I assume since they bumped up the clock speed of the AMD chip in there, that they also had to deal with heat dissipation. Unless the cooling in the current PS4 is enough, I would imagine they had to redesign the cooling. And of course, the RAM in there will probably be putting out more heat, since they moved to a faster clock on it as well. And if I understand here, the "4k" resolution is just up-scaling, so it is not true 4k resolution? That would make sense, since there is no way that AMD chip could begin to actually play true 4k games.

 

[Lionvibez]

I used to play on my PS4 quite a bit. But that all ended when I recently built myself a gaming PC using the i7-6700k CPU and EVGA 980Ti FTW gpu and combined it with a 1440p/144hz gaming monitor. There is just no comparison. I have BF4 for PS4 and PC. The console version is a blurry, stuttery mess with it's low resolution, awful textures and struggling framerates. The PC version looks and plays absolutely beautiful at true 2560x1440 and 144 frames per second. Consoles are still many years away from this type of PC quality graphics and framerates.

Sorry but this must be a joke. A PS4 is 350€, your pc was 1500-2000?

yep in more shocking news his Ferrari his faster than his family car.

Also he is just talking nonsense anyway , BF4 on PS4 is one of the rare games that runs at 60 FPS and looks lovely.

You guys are right that the comparison is off when you compared the dollar value.

But he is spot on about the graphic quality difference. Even if that ps4 version is running 900p at 60fps its still has lower quality textures than the pc version and a whole bunch of other differences that will make the pc version superior.

 

[heeeey heeey]

What a sloppy mess. Is this the generation that consoles die completely? Has there ever been a .5 console release that's been successful?

If I was a real hardcore gamer... I'd be weighing the cost of a new console and a half a$$ VR implementation that's coming down the pipes against a nice gaming computer and better VR right now. VR could be the nail in the coffin for traditional consoles.

I can see this working fairly well. With nintendo launching a new console that's most likely still underpowered and MS fidgeting around trying to find an answer to the hole they dug themselves into, a new and improved PS4 can cement Sony's position as the best platform for years to come.

And the reason we haven't seen any successful .5 releases was because of the difficulty of maintaining parity with the vanilla version. The x86 CPU and GCN GPU are much easily upgradeable and it will only require a minimum amount of work for the devs to make the older games work properly on both systems. (just a settings difference like on a PC)

But Sony must make sure that both systems have the same games or else it will fail.

The best platform will always be PC.

 

[heeeey heeey]

So I assume since they bumped up the clock speed of the AMD chip in there, that they also had to deal with heat dissipation. Unless the cooling in the current PS4 is enough, I would imagine they had to redesign the cooling. And of course, the RAM in there will probably be putting out more heat, since they moved to a faster clock on it as well. And if I understand here, the "4k" resolution is just up-scaling, so it is not true 4k resolution? That would make sense, since there is no way that AMD chip could begin to actually play true 4k games.

a amd 9590 and a fury x will be able to play 4k games as native resolution. So yeah there are amd chips that can play 4k games.

 

[heeeey heeey]

Just another good reason to only support PC based games ....

all games are pc based.