Sony finally officially announced two brand new PlayStation models during the recent PlayStation Meeting 2016 livestream event: the PS4 slim, and the super powerful PS4 Pro.
The PS4 slim is apparently now the ‘standard console moving forward’ – it’s leaner, meaner and more energy efficient. This model will be with us very soon, with a September 15 release date and modest price tag of £249.
Then we have the mighty PlayStation 4 Pro (formerly known as the Neo or PS4K). It’s exactly what we all expected it to be based on rumours and leaks for a few months now, but it’s good to know for sure at last.
The new machine isn’t here to replace the standard model, but to ‘take the PS4 experience to new heights with an upgraded GPU (double the power in fact), a 1TB hard drive, and support for 4K and HDR. It’s coming November 10, and costs £349
The likes of Spider Man, For Honor, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Watch Dogs 2 were rolled out and shown off as they appear on the PS4 Pro.
The brief visual demos of each highlighted a number of features, from more detailed environments and character models, to sexy textures, and longer draw distances.
Gorgeous lighting effects were shown off for Days Gone, while an extensive look at Horizon Zero Dawn showed us what the Pro can really do.
Even for us peasants that don’t have a 4K TV, we can expect to see all manner of improvements on lower resolution displays thanks to the Pro.
Introducing the super-charged #PS4PRO, delivering the sharpest gaming experiences ever seen. #PlayStationMeeting pic.twitter.com/qnDuTFcbwH
— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU) September 7, 2016
It was also confirmed that patches will be coming to visually improve a number of already released PS4 games, including Uncharted 4 and Shadow of Mordor – something Sony has referred to as ‘forward compatibility’.
While the majority of footage from newer games was all too brief, BioWare did pop up to give us our best look yet at Mass Effect Andromeda as it appears on the PS4 Pro (and it looks pretty glorious).
In the Mass Effect footage, our hero wanders through an alien cave/ruin of some kind and gets shot at by some unknown menace – still not much to go on, but it’s great to see Andromeda is actually still happening after a disappointing lack of presence at E3.
Of course, the PS4 Pro also aims to improve other aspects of the PlayStation experience. We’ve been promised improvements to the upcoming PlayStation VR headsets, with higher framerates and an overall crisper virtual experience.
There’s also 600 hours of 4k tv/movies coming to the Netflix app, and a special 4k YouTube app for all our viewing needs.
Watch live video from PlayStation on www.twitch.tv
Finally, Sony ended the show by announcing that every single currently existing PS4 will be getting an update that makes it HDR capable, which is kind of a baller move on their part.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.