Sources speaking to Giantbomb, and Sony documents seen by the website, have revealed more (apparent) details about the PlayStation 4.5, or ‘PlayStation 4k’ (Rumour Claims ‘PS4.5’ Will Run Games at UHD).
Internally known as the Neo, the console will feature a higher clock speed (2.1GHz, from 1.6GHz), new GPU (AMD Graphics Core Next, 36 compute units at 911MHz) and more memory bandwidth (218Gbps, from 176Gbps). Games will be playable in UltraHD, but do not need to be natively UltraHD.
The console will feature a resolution upscaling feature, with ‘multiple ways’ to approach this. However, one place that Sony is not willing to compromise is frame rates; the firm specifies that all games must equal or exceed the frame rate of the original PS4.
Sony is keen not to split its user base. The new console – if, indeed, it is real – will use the same store and PlayStation Network as the current PS4. There will also be no exclusive games, gameplay options or unlockables for the Neo. Improved versions of existing features, however – such as eight-player split screen instead of four-player – will be supported.
All games released from October 2016 will need to support the Neo, and any released in late September will require a day-one patch to be made compatible. Games released prior to this date will be able to take advantage of the Neo, but only if the developers decide to patch them.
