Sony Working on a New PlayStation Handheld Capable of PS4 Games?

[btarunr]

With handheld gaming devices being all the rage these days, thanks to PC manufacturers getting into the form-factor; the conditions seem ripe for a new PlayStation handheld generation. Rumors of Sony working on a new gaming handheld first surfaced in February 2024 from a Moore's Law is Dead report, and now other leakers are resonating the theory. This is a fully fledged handheld console that runs games locally, unlike the PlayStation Portal, which was a cloud gaming endpoint device.

The PlayStation 4 debuted a decade ago, with SoC hardware specs that can easily be match by current-generation AMD Ryzen Z1 APUs, in handheld console power footprints; and the leakers tend to agree—the new handheld console will be able to play all the games from the PlayStation 4 library, besides its own unique crop of games that take advantage of certain handheld human interface features, such as a touchscreen, accelerometer, and gyro.



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[LazyGamer]

Hmmm. Idk if releasing a handheld around the same time as Nintendo releases its next gen console is a smart idea for Sony.

 

[64K]

There's definitely a market for a new handheld from Sony. With the Nintendo Switch having sold 141 million units so far and placing number 3 of the best selling consoles of all time it's something a massive amount of gamers want. Only the Playstation 2 and Nintendo DS sold more. Also interesting to note that 3 of the top 5 best selling consoles of all time were handhelds.

I would expect a new Sony handheld like the article is referring to would sell tens of millions of units soon after release if the price is reasonable.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I really liked the PSP/Vita but I'm also skeptical Sony would support a handheld long term... Hopefully this and the rumored Xbox one is decent.

 

[friocasa]

More like PS5 games, just at a lower resolution, this includes PS4 games

Current CPU architecture can perform on low power mobile as desktop Ryzen 3700X, then just use a weaker iGPU that would perform on 720p/900p like PS5 does at 4K

Just imagine something like Steam Deck or ROG ALLY but released with the latest AMD architectures

 

[tvshacker]

The PlayStation 4 debuted a decade ago, with SoC hardware specs that can easily be match by current-generation AMD Ryzen Z1 APUs, in handheld console power footprints; and the leakers tend to agree—the new handheld console will be able to play all the games from the PlayStation 4 library

I believe there could be some gains to be had on a custom OS, but even so I doubt they'll match the same image quality settings on some PS4 games. The smaller screen can also help disguise some of those shortcomings and the SOC will surely help with new(er) upscaling tech compared to the PS4, but I think they'll be lying if they promise the same image fidelity.
I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

[64K]

I believe there could be some gains to be had on a custom OS, but even so I doubt they'll match the same image quality settings on some PS4 games. The smaller screen can also help disguise some of those shortcomings and the SOC will surely help with new(er) upscaling tech compared to the PS4, but I think they'll be lying if the promise the same image fidelity.
I'd love to be proven wrong.

They don't have to lie. Just use the same old marketing babble that works on most people. Just claim "up to the same image quality as PS4" which is damn near meaningless in reality. All that the handheld would have to manage is a couple of games that could perform that well and the rest could fall short to some degree while not actually lying.

 

[Denver]

Hmmm. Idk if releasing a handheld around the same time as Nintendo releases its next gen console is a smart idea for Sony.

Nintendo lives in a parallel world apart from the rest, whatever they release doesn't affect Sony in any significant way.

Btw I'd like a worthy successor to the PSP.

 

[TechLurker]

God, I just want a proper successor to the Vita. That thing, despite its age, has aged quite well (both the LED and OLED screen variants I own do at least), and with homebrew firmware, gave it a second life being able to emulate old PS1, PS2, and PSP games as well as still being able to connect to the internet and watch movies (although its 2G speeds limited its online performance as 3G and 4G came along).

Given that the PS Portal has been selling out due to the flexibility of being able to remotely access the PS5 anywhere, I could easily see a PSP2/PSV2 also sell out if it adds full offline gaming capability on top of that, plus being able to use it to watch/stream movies/video, and other similar stuff that people also side-use their Steam Decks/Ally/Ayaneos for (even the oddballs who use theirs for non-gaming work).

 

[HeadRusch1]

More like PS5 games, just at a lower resolution, this includes PS4 games

Current CPU architecture can perform on low power mobile as desktop Ryzen 3700X, then just use a weaker iGPU that would perform on 720p/900p like PS5 does at 4K

Just imagine something like Steam Deck or ROG ALLY but released with the latest AMD architectures

This is because there is no such thing as a Next-Gen PS5 or Xbox Series X game.........pretty much the entire gen is a lie in terms of next-gen visuals, every game released for those systems also works on the previous gen and looks almost the same, just at slightly lower detail levels and slightly less resolution depending on the CPU/GPU impact per-game (some games fare better than others). In the end, I think Sony and Microsoft both expected to have Unreal Engine 5 level game delivery.......only to find Unreal Engine 5 can run on them, but at 30fps with any fancy visuals turned on, aka: The APU's in these machines appear to be more akin to the Xbox One to Xbox One X level of upgrades, and it feels like Sony is about to make the same hardware mistake with it's PS5 Pro.

If Sony makes a new handheld, and it can run PS4 games or their equivalent, I'm curious what APU it's going to run on....Sony probably saw Steam Deck and thought to itself "now is a great time for us to introduce a new propritary physical media format in a hand-held system to re-sell scaled-back PS4 games!"

Not a fan of the shennanigans that these hardware companys like to play with their marketing anymore.....(Microsoft included, Nintendo is exempt...they never promise the world anymore but their history of abandoned hardware is also telling).

 

[TechLurker]

Hmmm. Idk if releasing a handheld around the same time as Nintendo releases its next gen console is a smart idea for Sony.

The gaming journalists will claim it's a new war, but the reality is that it's not. Nintendo will sell more because their consoles cost less and they have a very closed ecosystem they control better than Sony does with theirs.

For Sony, this would just be another peripheral to cover as much ground as they can. The fact that the PS Portal does sell out regularly shows there's value in some kind of portable device, and if Sony can market off their own Deck/Ally-alike, would further push their reach into the mobile space again.

Even then though; unless Sony gets their act together and start better integrating and supporting both the fixed console and portable console game releases, they'll end up repeating the same issues that plagued the PSP and PSV, which was lack of consistent game catalogs on both. Given that the hardware should be on similar standards this time around, it should theoretically be easier for Sony to get devs working on dual-releases for PSP2/PSV2 and PS5, making use of the preset graphics options to control performance and quality (somewhat like they did with the PSV and PS4, where the PSV just ran the same game with lower graphics and sometimes lower poly models).

 

[Keullo-e]

A portable PS4 would be a dream, it has a great library of games.

 

[tvshacker]

A portable PS4 would be a dream, it has a great library of games.

It would (probably) be the greatest launch catalogue ever!

 

[Craptacular]

A portable PS4 would be a dream, it has a great library of games.

Sounds like the Switch 2.