Sony Unveils Two New PlayStation Consoles
Sony announced two new PlayStation consoles today at a Times Square event in New York City. One packs the features from the original PS4 into a slimmer, more efficient design. The other is a high-performance model ready for virtual reality, 4K, and HDR.
The slim PS4—available Sept. 15 at a price of $299—comes with a slightly redesigned controller. Beyond that and the sleeker body, there's little to distinguish it from the model on store shelves right now.
The $399 PS4 Pro, which arrives Nov. 10, is designed to support the high graphical fidelity needed for virtual reality. According to Sony, it has more than double the GPU power of the original PS4.
That will come in handy once the $399 PlayStation VR headset launches on Oct. 13.
A 1TB hard drive and support for 4K video and HDR put the PS4 Pro (once dubbed the PS4 Neo) on par with the recently released Xbox One S. But, while the Xbox One S was upgraded primarily to support 4K and HDR televisions, the PS4 Pro’s beefed up graphics are a boon for gamers who want more fidelity in their games. Sony showcased the graphical improvement with demos from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Thanks to Sony’s “forward compatibility” feature, which allows standard PS4 games to receive updates from developers, you shouldn't have trouble playing your current games on either console. As for video streaming, you'll be happy to know that Netflix and YouTube will both provide 4K content for the PS4 Pro.
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