Sony Corp has announced that a new PlayStation 4 model called the “Ultimate Player Edition” will be hitting the market by the end of next month, first arriving in Japan at the end of June and then reaching Europe and North America later in July. The new model will feature a slimmer design, as well as 1TB of storage space, which is double the amount of storage of the PlayStation 4’s current 500GB drive.

“Offering twice the storage of the existing PS4, you’ll be able to download more of the games you love to your PS4, extend your play with more great add-on content and save and share even more of your best gaming highlights,” Sony said on the PlayStation blog.

As the video game industry continues its trend toward digital distribution, even for consoles, storage space has become incredibly important, and a 1TB hard drive will let PlayStation 4 owners download more games and DLC without filling up their system.

The new PlayStation 4 will be available in “glacier white” or “jet black” for those of you who try to match your electronics, and the cases will come in a matte finish, which Sony says gives the console “a more casual look.”The new PlayStation 4 will also be 10 percent lighter than the current model and consume 8 percent less power overall.

The reduced power consumption may not sound like much, but video game consoles are notorious power hogs, and even a small improvement in efficiency can add up over time. According to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the combined yearly power consumption of current-gen consoles is enough to power all of the homes in the city of Houston for the same length of time. The report estimated that consumers spend roughly $1 billion in power costs to run the consoles.

With the price of the Sony’s console steadily dropping, releasing an alternate design is also a good way to jump the price back up. No cost details have been released yet, but the current price of a PlayStation 4 console is hovering at just under $400.

Image credit: PlayStation Europe via Flickr(license)