Sony will phase out the PlayStation 4 in favour of the new Slim version of the console, the Wall Street Journal reports.
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The company said it will hold a news conference at the PlayStation Theater in NY on 7 September. A spokesperson said the company will talk about the PlayStation 4 business.
Macquarie Securities analyst Damian Thong told the WSJ that the new standard model would be cheaper and slimmer than the $350 version now on the market.
“The new pricing reflects the current market conditions while enabling us to continue providing exceptional value to our members”, writes Sony in PlayStation’s official blog. However, fans have taken to calling it the PS4.5, PS4K or the PlayStation 4 Neo. The WSJ says that Sony cut production of the current PlayStation 4 console ahead of that date, suggesting that the slimmer model would replace the launch PS4 as the standard version of the console.
The two new gaming machines are meant to succeed the current best-selling console, the PS4. This goes doubly for consoles which haven’t even been announced yet, like the supposed PlayStation 4 “Slim” seen here. However, there are now a few images of the alleged slimmer PlayStation over at NeoGAF, and it appears as if the new console isn’t as wide or as deep as the original PlayStation 4, too.
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Sony confirmed the upgraded console in June, which had the codename “Neo”. There were expectations that Sony will shed some light on the console at the E3 earlier this year, but nothing came out of the tech giant. We had heard rumors of a new PlayStation console coming in October, and assumed it would be the Neo. This also means that Sony is already planning to release the new system either the day the announcement is made or soon after.
