New rumors suggest that the PS4 Neo might hit stores as early as September.
This news comes courtesy French video game distributor Innelec Multimedia, which issued a press release about the Neo 4K, commenting that the new console will become available in "the first half of our fiscal year." For those keeping track, that gives the console a release date ranging from April to September 2016.
The press release first appeared on the website Boursier, and then translated by VideoGamer.com.
So why is this particular release date so important? This means that the PS4 Neo - which will feature some upgraded specs from the PS4 - will come out before PlayStation VR, which will probably require those upgrades to run smoothly. PlayStation VR should hit stores in October, so it's also likely that Sony plans on bundling VR with Neo.
According to reports, the PS4 Neo will feature a bump in clock speed from 1.6 GHz to 2.1 GHz. The system will also have a better GPU, as well as offer 4K support. Experts also suspect that the newer console will have a higher bandwidth for memory: the current system only has 176 Gbps, while the Neo could have up to 218 Gbps.
Sony has kept quiet about the newer system, so most of what we have to go on is speculation, but it does seem like the Neo actually does exist and that it will feature better hardware. Current PS4 owners, though, have nothing to worry about: reports state that both will use the same PlayStation Store and online communities and that the PS4 Neo won't have games exclusive to it. It's just an upgrade in specs. Early reports even suggest that PlayStation VR will run just fine on the existing the PS4, but it's still likely that it will run better on the newer console.
Again, Sony hasn't even officially announced the Neo, but as more information comes in from third parties, it's likely an announcement will arrive soon, potentially at this year's E3 conference. In the meantime, Sony's competitors in the console market are also planning on introducing new consoles: rumors point to Nintendo developing a new system called the NX and Microsoft will probably soon introduce an Xbox One slim.
