Sony is reportedly working on a new handheld that can play PS5 games natively
Sony is reportedly working on a handheld that will play PS5 games natively, as opposed to the PlayStation Portal which only serves as a third-party player for the console. The PlayStation parent is said to have started developing the portable device early on. The company is reportedly planning to position a new gaming handheld as a competitor to the highly successful Nintendo Switch. Sony’s current portable device, the PlayStation Portal, launched last year and only streams games and media from a connected PS5 over Wi-Fi.
New Sony handheld in the making
The information comes from Bloomberg, which reported On Monday, Sony announced that Sony was in the “early stages” of developing a new gaming handheld for playing PS5 games on the go. According to the report, the wearable device was intended to expand Sony’s offerings and compete with Nintendo in the wearables space.
A Sony handheld would also reportedly compete against a potential portable gaming device from Xbox parent company Microsoft. Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer has expressed interest in an Xbox handheld several times, and the company is expected to enter the portable gaming market at some point, especially considering several Windows-based gaming handhelds have launched in the past year , which all includes the Xbox app and lets players play games from their Xbox and Game Pass libraries.
Spencer said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that the “expectation is that we would do something” in the handheld category. Microsoft is reportedly working on prototypes for the device and considering its approach. However, the Xbox chief confirmed that a handheld device from Microsoft will be released in a few years.
Sony’s planned portable gaming device is also likely years away from launch, the report claims, citing people familiar with the company’s plans. The company’s plans could also change, with the device reportedly ultimately failing to reach the market.
PlayStation portal
If the handheld hits the market, it would expand Sony’s gaming hardware offering. Launching in November 2023, the PlayStation Portal offers a portable gaming experience, but only when paired with a PS5 parent console. The device cannot run PS5 games and requires a high-speed Wi-Fi connection to stream games from the paired console, which must be left in rest mode to enable remote play.
However, Sony expanded the capabilities of the PlayStation Portal last week by releasing an update that adds support for cloud streaming of select PS5 games. The feature, which is currently in beta, would be available to PlayStation Plus Deluxe/Premium subscribers. With cloud streaming support, Portal users would be able to stream more than 120 PS5 games directly from Sony’s servers, without the need for a PS5.
