Polygon and the Wall Street Journal are reporting that a new version of the PlayStation 4 might be announced before the release of PlayStation VR later this year, though there is no confirmation from Sony. Representatives of the company have been hinting at the new console in interviews in various outlets earlier this year, but that doesn’t necessarily mean one is definitely on the way.
The main difference between the existing PS4 and the alleged new one is that the new one will support 4K resolution content. Though just because it supports that content doesn’t mean it will make any difference to many users. You need to own a 4K TV as well. Those TVs range in price from $1,000 to $2,500 based on size and model. Conversely, owning a 4K TV doesn’t mean all of the content you get on your PS4 is going to be 4K. In fact, very little 4K content is available right now. Streaming movie and TV content from the likes of Amazon Instant Video and Netflix are limited right now, though both plan to increase their offerings this year.
So what does this mean for games? Some PC games can currently run at 4K on a 4K monitor, but you need a really, really good rig to run them, and even then the results can be mixed. 4K.com has an in-depth explanation of what’s needed to run a 4K game at 60 frames per second on a PC. So any new PS4 will need to have significantly more processing power than the current one, and who knows what that would actually cost.
