Sony Confirms PlayStation Neo’s Existence, But No E3 Presence- GameInformer

After all of the rumors, speculation, and leaked specifications, it’s real. Sony’s Ultra HD PlayStation 4 upgrade is coming. It just isn’t coming to E3 next week.

The news was confirmed by Sony Interactive Entertainment president and global CEO Andrew House in an interview with the Financial Times. House didn’t announce the name of the new system, but did say that it is intended to co-exist with the current PlayStation 4.

“It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4,” he told the Financial Times. “We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle.” 

House also says that all games will support the existing PlayStation 4. However, there may be titles that don’t support the new system. He also admits that there will be more work for developers in supporting both models, but that it should be a “small but manageable” increase in effort.

As for why Sony feels comfortable with mid-generation iteration? The answer comes back to mobile devices.

“The consumer is attuned to a different cadence of innovation in technology thanks in great part for the upgrades cadence on mobile phones or PCs,” House said. No pricing or timing was revealed in the interview.

We’ve reached out to Sony for additional details. We’ll update should we receive a response. 

[Source: Financial Times]

Our Take
I’ll admit disappointment in this announcement. Splitting the install base, creating more work for developers, and introducing more room for bugs and glitches with every update due to the addition of another spec is hard for me to wrap my head around. Unfortunately, since this came out during an interview and not a detailed announcement, Sony is leaving many questions hanging in the air.

As for not showing it at E3, the logic seems clear. Putting new hardware out there in a big way puts the deep freeze on existing models. This hints that the new system might not be out in time for this holiday.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/06/10/sony-confirms-playstation-neos-existence-but-no-e3-presence.aspx

Is  this news relevant to owners and soon to be PS4 owners?

One question is, if that's the case (limited retroactivity ), what's the point of Neo and Sony's focus? VR ?

He probably worded it wrong. What he probably meant is that not every game will have a special Neo mode with better graphics, resolution and framerate.
IF some PS4 games indeed don't run on the Neo at all then Sony should be ashamed of themselves, that'd be the stupidest thing a platform holder would have ever done.

What version should i get then. The weaker version that plays all games or the stronger version that doesn't .

That would be weird and possibly confusing if that actually happens

That makes 0 sense, he probably means that some games would not have any kind of improvements on Ps4Neo.

Do you really believe that? Mister X is that you?

That is NOT what he meant and it makes absolutely no sense.... he means that a few games may not take advantage of the power of the new hardware. Not that they would not work....

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-how-playstation-4k-neo-and-the-original-ps4-will-co-exist

All games will run on both PS4 and Neo. It is just not mandatory to have specific visual/performance enhancements for the Neo version, as poklane said.

This, to me, is the most interesting tidbit:

“The consumer is attuned to a different cadence of innovation in technology thanks in great part for the upgrades cadence on mobile phones or PCs,” House said.

Is the consumer attuned in this way? I don't know. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

This is just a misunderstanding. He's likely referring to it being "supported" by the extra power in the PS4K. So no higher resolution textures or anything, just the vanilla game.