Ahead of the start of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony President and CEO Andrew House has confirmed the long-rumored existence of a more powerful PlayStation 4, codenamed Neo, that will be sold alongside the standard PS4.

Speaking to the Financial Times (subscription or Google-Fu required), House made it clear that this isn't a replacement for the current PlayStation 4 hardware; it will merely provide an upgraded experience to games that will largely work on both consoles.

“It is intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4,” he said. “We will be selling both [versions] through the life cycle... 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."

House added that it would take minimal work for game developers to support both versions of the hardware. That suggests most normal PS4 games would simply see a graphical upgrade when running on the Neo, perhaps utilizing higher resolution textures and 3D modeling detail.

The report doesn't go into a lot of technical detail on the PS4 Neo , which is rumored to have a faster clock speed and double the compute units in the GPU, as well as faster RAM. The new "high-end" system will reportedly support "ultra-high definition 4K resolution," but it's unclear if this target is meant for games or merely for non-interactive video content.

The announcement comes just before the game industry's annual E3 marketing blitz, but House said the PS4 Neo won't be on display at the show because "we want to ensure we have a full range of the best experiences on the new system that we can showcase in their entirety." House didn't go into detail on price, but he said the unit would be more expensive than the current $350 PS4. The upcoming PlayStation VR headset will work on both original and Neo PS4 units.

The confirmation of the PS4 Neo has happened even as Microsoft is widely rumored to be readying a similar mid-cycle update for the Xbox One, which could include potential VR capability.