At this point, Sony’s souped-up PlayStation 4 — code-named Neo — has to be one of the worst-kept secrets in the video game industry. We first heard about the project well ahead of this year’s E3 event, and despite Sony’s efforts to focus on the here and now, more details continue to leak on a regular basis.
Now, the system’s price tag and release date seem to have been made public thanks to an early product listing from Amazon’s Spanish storefront. Over the weekend, a product page for the PlayStation Neo was spotted on the site, and quickly removed once news outlets started reporting on its information.
The new version of the PlayStation 4 will launch on October 13, according to a report from Entertainment.ie. The retail price given by Amazon was apparently 400 euros, which is roughly equivalent to $450 — however, the standard console launched at 400 euros in Europe, and was still priced at $400 for its North American release.
Given that the Neo is intended to work well alongside the PlayStation VR headset, it makes sense that Sony would try to keep the console’s cost in line with the launch pricing of the standard PlayStation 4. If players are going to be expected to buy both a headset and a new system, the price for both has to be less than that of a comparable VR-ready PC.
There’s evidence to support the October 13 release date too. Documents leaked on July 15 state that PlayStation 4 games launching after October 2016 should support both the standard PlayStation 4 and the Neo, a time frame that would seem to be corroborated by the Amazon leak.
Sony is yet to state any official plans regarding the release of the PlayStation Neo. However, with the amount of information being shared without the company’s say-so, it seems likely that we’ll hear something concrete sooner rather than later — especially if the system is scheduled to launch within the next three months.
