We already have the Portal, but this other handheld won’t rely on cloud streaming (Sony)
A new report has added fuel to rumours of a new PlayStation handheld, but apparently it’s not the PlayStation 6.
Last year, Sony released a new handheld device called the PlayStation Portal, which lets you enjoy your PlayStation 5 games on a smaller screen. It doesn’t run games itself though and just streams them from your existing console.
Much like the PS5 Pro, the Portal was designed only as a niche product, for hardcore fans, but while Sony hasn’t shared exact sales figures it seems to have proved more popular than they expected.
So much so that a recent report alleges that Sony is considering taking a proper crack at the handheld market again with a new device inspired by both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5.
Is Sony making a new PlayStation Portable?
According to Bloomberg, Sony is in the early stages of developing a new PlayStation handheld device that builds on the PlayStation Portal, and the goal is for it to natively run PlayStation 5 games.
As a reminder, the PlayStation Portal can only stream games from your PlayStation 5, so it won’t work without a stable Wi-Fi connection. While not much of an issue when at home, it does mean the Portal is not ideal for long train journeys or the like.
Bloomberg’s sources were keen to stress that any new handheld is still years away from coming out, and Sony could wind up changing its mind and not release it at all.
There was chatter of Sony developing a new handheld just a few months ago, with insider Tom Henderson (who was the first to leak PS5 Pro details) claiming Sony was ‘paying very close attention to the current handheld market.’
There have also been rumours that a new portable is being developed alongside the PlayStation 6, and both of them will make use of AMD hardware.
It could be that the two devices are one and the same, and that’s where some of the recent talk about the PlayStation 6 has come from, but both possibilities are equally hard to imagine.
How Sony would take something as big as a PlayStation 5 and shrink it down to the size of a Nintendo Switch is unclear, even with several years of improving technology, especially given what that implies about battery length.
Let’s not forget the reason the PlayStation 5 is so chunky is so it can house the cooling fan and stop the console overheating. So, condensing that into something you can comfortably hold in your hands would be no small feat.
Why is Sony making a new PlayStation Portable?
Aside from potentially being emboldened by the Portal’s success (industry analyst Mat Piscatella said it was still the best-selling gaming accessory of the year last month), Bloomberg’s sources said the goal of the new handheld is, obviously, to expand Sony’s reach and rival both Nintendo and Microsoft.
Although sales of the Nintendo Switch have been dropping, especially as interest shifts to the Switch 2, it’s been tremendously successful and could very well become the best-selling console ever by 2025.
Meanwhile, Microsoft admitted it’s developing prototypes for its own Xbox handheld just a couple of weeks ago. Although, as with Sony, it’s unclear whether they mean for a current gen device or a next gen model.
It’s not unusual for both companies to be influenced by Nintendo, as Kinect and PlayStation Move prove, and it may be that Microsoft and Sony are waiting to see what the Switch 2 looks like with more interest than even most gamers.
Sony and Microsoft seem to really want a piece of the Switch pie (Microsoft)
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