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Audience members react to an announcement at Sony's Playstation 4 event last year.
# Fight Fight Fight
A different kind of console war is beginning to brew
Instead of announcing brand new consoles, both Sony and Microsoft are planning to release updated versions of their current consoles.
THREE YEARS AFTER releasing the Playstation 4 (PS4) and Xbox One, both Sony and Microsoft are preparing for another console war, but unlike the last time, it will focus on improvements instead of releasing something brand new.
Sony has confirmed it is developing an upgraded version of its PS4 which will offer 4K resolution and richer graphics.
In an interview with the Financial Times, the president and global chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment said the “high-end” PS4 was in the works.
Codenamed Neo, the upgraded console would be more expensive than the current version, but won’t be revealed at E3, the major gaming conference annually held in Los Angeles, next week.
“All games will support the standard PS4 and we anticipate all or a very large majority of games will also support the high-end PS4,” he told the Financial Times.
Sony isn’t the only one planning on releasing an updated version of its console. Microsoft is said to be planning to release two updated consoles, according to Kotaku. One will be a smaller, cheaper Xbox One while the other, codenamed Scorpio, will be a more powerful version.
The compact version will be announced at Microsoft’s event at E3 but the more powerful version won’t be released until 2017. Kotaku also says this version would be technically capable of supporting the Oculus Rift and that Microsoft is pursuing a partnership with it which could mean native support for the VR headset.
Both the Xbox One and PS4 were released at the end of 2013, with Sony’s console selling more than 40 million units worldwide. Both companies will have keynote events at E3 next week where new titles for their respective platforms will be announced.
Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo is currently working on its next-generation console. Codenamed NX, not much has been revealed about it except it would incorporate a “brand new concept” and has a planned release date of March 2017.
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