Leaked documents obtained by Giant Bomb (and further authenticated by Digital Foundry, who says they’ve gained access to the same information), have seemingly all but confirmed that a heavily-rumored upgrade to the original PlayStation 4 – previously referred to as the PlayStation 4.5 or 4K – does in fact exist, and features notably more powerful hardware over its predecessor.
According to the documents (via Giant Bomb), the new hardware is being developed under the codename of NEO (references to The Matrix go here) and has several superior hardware components over the standard PS4 console.
See below for the supposed differences between the two:
PlayStation 4
CPU 8 Jaguar Cores at 1.6 GHz
GPU AMD GCN, 18 CUs at 800 MHz
Memory 8 GB GDDR5, 176 GB/sPlayStation 4.5/4K/NEO
8 Jaguar Cores at 2.1 GHz
Improved AMD GCN, 36 CUs at 911 MHz
8 GB GDDR5, 218 GB/s
The documents also state that all games released from October of this year will need to support the hardware of both consoles, but that there won’t be any games that can only be played on the NEO. Furthermore, existing titles will be able to take advantage of the NEO’s superior hardware, but only if developers for each specific title choose to add support themselves.
In addition to all of the information provided by Giant Bomb, Digital Foundry says that test kits will be sent out to developers around June and that Sony has already started providing said studios with details of the hardware.
A second-gen test kit, again not based on the actual retail shell, goes out in June. Sony gives more intensive Neo briefings at its DevCon event in in May, while code submission for Neo-compatible titles begins in August.
For all of the extensive details extracted from the documents, you can head over to the Giant Bomb article here. Sony hasn’t commented on the leak just yet, but with evidence mounting every day to suggest the PlayStation 4.5 does exist, we can’t imagine the company will be keeping quiet for much longer. Stay tuned.