After months and months of speculation, the mysterious upgraded PlayStation 4, project Neo, has finally been named, priced and dated.
During a conference at the PlayStation Meeting 2016, live from Times Square, New York City, Sony officially revealed the PlayStation 4 Pro.
The new console, which has a plethora of visual upgrades and new features, will launch worldwide on November 10th, 2016, at a price point of $399, £349 and €399.
Global CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Andrew House, was quick to stress that with the PlayStation 4 Pro the Sony Eco system remains “one community” and that game discs and downloads will work on PlayStation 4 Pro, PlayStation 4 and the also newly announced PlayStation 4 Slim. However, games on Play Station 4 Pro will be a different way to play.
Game designer Mark Cerny took to the stage and, while simultaneously wooing watchers with his ASMR like tone, gave an incredibly in-depth key note on just how impressive the PlayStation 4 Pro will make games look.
Discussing four key areas: 4K, HDR, HDTV and VR, a he used games such as Insomniac’s Spiderman, Ubisoft’s For Honour, Crystal Dynamic’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs 2 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to show off the graphical upgrades that PlayStation 4 Pro will provide.
Cerny said: “The PS4 Pro is not intended to blur the line between console generations” and that graphics and game fidelity will be taken to “extraordinary new levels”.
This is being achieved as the CPU in the PlayStation 4 Pro has been significantly upgraded from the PlayStation 4, and the new console has double the power of its predecessor.
Bizarrely, however, for reasons not yet established, the PlayStation 4 Pro does not support 4K Blu-Ray.
Sony Bend’s Days Gone was also shown off at the show, and was used to highlight how the new HDR effects can make games look so much more real, in both day and night.
However, the most impressive game play demo of all was that of Guerrilla Game’s Horizon: Zero Dawn, which looked gorgeous in 4K as the main character scaled a massive robotic dinosaur.
Elsewhere, it was also announced that every PS4 model will soon be HDR compatible after a firmware update next week.
