Report: 'PS4.5' has improved graphics, will be announced by October

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Sony will announce a new, more powerful PlayStation 4 model before it releases PlayStation VR in October, according to a new report by the Wall Street Journal. The anonymously sourced report posits details that fall in line with what we already knew about 'PS4.5', the rumored incremental hardware upgrade for Sony's successful console.

According to the report, Sony will continue selling the original PS4 once the upgraded version, which is also being referred to as 'PS4K', hits store shelves. All the reports I've seen so far have agreed that the next PS4 model will include a more powerful graphics card, though one of WSJ's sources said the two consoles will likely share the same software catalog - meaning some games may look better on 'PS4.5', but you won't have to upgrade to play them.

Better performance also means improved VR experiences, and it sounds like the new PS4 revision will be positioned as the ideal companion for PlayStation VR. Aside from the PS4 camera, obviously, which is required to play.

One big point of contention between the 'PS4.5' reports so far is whether it will be able to power gaming at significantly higher resolutions. While the WSJ reports that it "would be able to handle ultra-high-resolution graphics," even high-end gaming PCs can struggle with pushing that many pixels. It seems more likely that the system will include other graphical boosts that could make it look better on more pixel-dense displays, while not actually bumping the resolution all the way up to 4K/ultra-HD.

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Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.