PlayStation Neo: Sony to announce updated, high-end version PS4 as well as slimmed-down version, report claims

The slimmer console is likely to become the new standard – while the Neo is Sony’s attempt at bringing back hardcore gamers

The PlayStation 4's successor could be coming out this year (Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

Sony is about to launch not just one new PlayStation but two.

The company is planning to launch a standard but slimmed down version of the PlayStation 4 alongside a special high-end version that’s been codenamed Project Neo.

Both of the new consoles will be released at an event at the PlayStation theatre in New York on 7 September.

Together, Sony hopes that the two consoles will allow it to keep interest from hardcore and more casual gamers. It also brings the console range in line with the Xbox, after Microsoft released the slimmer Xbox One S and is rumoured to be working on a more powerful console for release in the future.

Sony said in June that it was planning to launch the high-end PlayStation 4 – codenamed Neo, but not necessarily to be released under that name – as a way of keeping up interest in the console. The company has said that the new console will be high-end – including a faster process, improved graphics and support for 4K – but that it will sit alongside the standard PS4 and all games will continue to work on both.

But it hadn’t mentioned the slimmer console, which was revealed in a Wall Street Journal article and has since been seen in pictures on an auction site. The company has released smaller versions of all of its preceding consoles – and Microsoft just did the same with its Xbox One S – and the shrunken PlayStation 4 is likely to take the place of the existing one in Sony’s line-up.