Sony Is Developing A Handheld, Standalone PlayStation, Says Report

This may be no great shock given that Sony has released a handheld system, the PlayStation Portal, almost a year ago exactly, but now they are developing something very similar, a handheld less tied to streaming and with the ability to play games natively, according to a new report

The report from Bloomberg says: “Sony’s portable device is likely years away from launch and the company could still decide against bringing it to market, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private plans.”

It’s said that the device builds on the PlayStation Portal, which was originally designed as something akin to this before moving to streaming. One reason this is happening is not just because of the Switch, and because Xbox has been public about its desire to make a handheld, but because the Portal surpassed Sony’s sales expectations, something I was wrong about as I didn’t know how big that audience would be. Pretty big, it turns out!

The PlayStation Portal just got an update that lets players stream more games without being tethered to a local PS5, a significant upgrade. But a system that plays games natively solves some of the problems with streaming, namely latency, but more importantly, the ability to play anywhere, anytime, with much fewer restrictions.

The success of the Switch has blown up the market for handhelds similar to where we were in the Game Box/DS/PSP days. While Nintendo handhelds always sold well, making their next console a full handheld and selling 146 million units made everyone sit up and take notice. Not that these handhelds are replacing Xboxes and PlayStation home units, but they want a piece of that action.

The order here appears to be the Switch first, existing since 2017, then we got Valve’s SteamDeck in 2022. Given that Microsoft is talking openly about a future handheld, that may be next. And then finally this “years away” PlayStation handheld that Sony will not comment on, and is not necessarily even a sure thing yet.

On the consumer side, the more of these the better. More options to play games in more places is good for all systems, especially natively. Yes, something like Xbox Game Pass may let you stream games to phones and tablets and such, but the core of the value of the Switch is the ability to simply take one device wherever and have it play things (mostly) natively. Of course, an open question here is about what quality Xbox and PlayStation games would be in a handheld system, as the Switch is well-behind in terms of keeping up with modern day visuals or performance in most cases. Hopefully we learn more soon.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.