Sony has announced that it is making 1TB the standard storage for the PlayStation 4 Slim, which is currently available in a 500GB variant, available to the US market. The “fatter” PS4 Slim can now hold double the games for twice the fun. The announcement was made in Twitter post by the Japanese electronics and gaming giant, and covers the North American market including the United States and Canada.
Arriving on store shelves this month: new slim PS4 system featuring a 1TB internal HDD for $299.99 MSRP! Details: https://t.co/8FZov0rqde pic.twitter.com/khdncXuSmT
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) April 18, 2017
Until now, the 500GB variant was the only model available in North America, while Europe has had the 1TB version since shortly after the launch of the redesigned PS4 variant. However, the European 1TB versions are available with game bundles. Japan even got the Glacier White model earlier this year, but the United States and Canada have only had the 500GB option so far. There were a few bundles that offered the 1TB version, but the selection has been quite limited.
The 1TB PS4 Slim will be available in North America this month per the tweet, but it will retain the same $299.99 price tag as the lower-specced PS4 Slim, but that model will now be discontinued in this market.
The 500GB units will still be available, but in the Americas it will now be restricted to Latin American countries.
The option to upgrade memory has always been there on PS4s, where users can swap the hard drive for a 2.5-inch drive. And Sony also brought in external memory support last month with the 4.50 OTA system upgrade.
A likely explanation for the late arrival of the 1TB bundle could be that Sony was testing the market for a lower-specced version ahead of releasing a variant with higher storage capacity.
But now, with external hard drive support via USB already available, it’s not clear how strong demand will be for the 1TB option. People who already own a PS4 Slim aren’t likely to trade it in for a 1TB model, especially if they’re already using external drives for additional memory. However, “gamers” and “more memory” are usually synonymous, so the 1TB PS4 Slim may well have a lucrative time of it in the United States.
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