According to The Wall Street Journal (via GameSpot), “people familiar with the matter” say the new system will make a debut “before the planned October release of PlayStation VR” headset.
This latest report corroborates previous reports from Kotaku, which first brought this new and improved PlayStation 4.5 to light, reporting that it would come with an upgraded graphics card, which would allow for smoother performance, better graphics, and 4K resolution on games, and from Eurogamer, which “independently established that it’s real,” and is codenamed PlayStation 4K, further adding that it will almost certainly use “semi-custom versions of AMD’s CPU and GPU technology integrated into a single, console-friendly processor,” just like the current console.
The latest report from WSJ claims that the new PlayStation 4 console will be capable of delivering “ultra-high definition resolution graphics,” and that “Sony’s goal with the upgraded PlayStation 4 console is to capture gamers willing to pay for a richer gaming environment, including a high-end virtual reality experience.” This apparently points towards Sony’s two-tier approach, which will likely see the current PlayStation 4 sold at a lower price than the upgraded version. Sony will also reportedly not let the new system create a division, and will offer exact same game library on both consoles.