Sony making their own Wii-U tablet but with less functionality?
Seems like a great idea, totally worked out for Nintendo
It’s not really fair to compare it to the wii u because the wii u was a handheld console while this is basically a hand held gaming streaming device. The wii u is more compared to other handheld consoles/computers like the steam deck or Asus rog ally.
I think they misunderstood what about the steam deck is making it popular
Honestly, dumb as this sounds, they can’t lose. It’s not a platform. There’s no infrastructure. It doesn’t even do cloud streaming, for some reason; it is 100.0% dependent on your hardware and your network. If Sony went bankrupt tomorrow, this gizmo would still work. If the hardware’s sold at a comfortable profit and they’re not gambling anything on its success, why wouldn’t they launch this ridiculous object? They don’t care if you don’t buy it.
It’s not a handheld. It’s an accessory.
Playing on it so someone else can watch TV is great but has no value outside your home if it relies on your PS5. For gaming like this I will stick with the Switch.
Feels like PlayStations version of the Wii U not the switch
Except without the GamePad’s uses for giving one player exclusive information in local multiplayer or the touch screen actually being used in games.
I use my Switch exclusively for this. If this handheld can eliminate lag, I’d love to get it. But it’s priced a bit too high.
There’s a a hands on post that says it will work outside the house. It just needs to be on a wifi network still.
Oh my God you idiots just bring back the Xperia Play how hard is that???
I think the issue is always going to be games. Who wants to make games targeting such a small userbase? Half of the Android games don’t even have good controller support (looking at you Genshin/Honkai)
PlayStation Portal is the ideal device for gamers in households where they may need to share their living room TV or simply want to play PS5 games in another room of the house.
Okay I can see there being a niche there, mom and dad want to watch a movie but Jr wants to play games. I don’t know if that’s a huge market, but okay
According to the description, PlayStation Portal is only a Remote Play device and will not allow access to cloud streaming of games on PlayStation Plus Premium. As a result, in order for the PlayStation Portal to function properly, players must own PS5 hardware.
This however seems like a massive lost opportunity. Like Steam Link I assume you could choose which device to stream from, and with companies being huge on the “reoccurring revenue” train this seems like it could have added a ton of value to the device and at the same time increased their subscriptions. It would have gone from a “at home only toy for a niche market” to “pretty much anyone who has a PS5 at home and/or travels”
There are definitely times when either my kids or my wife is watching something and I’d rather be gaming so I think I’d probably use something like this. However, last time I tried a remote play solution from Sony the lag was brutal, so I’m a bit skeptical.
Can one use the cloud streaming via their PS5?
Edit: also I don’t think it’s that niche. I see this being a common occurrence in any household with only one high end TV and more than one person who wants to use it. The price point isn’t much more than a controller and a screen to begin with. They should sell the remote play hardware without the screen (just hdmi out) and controller (just include a bluetooth chip to allow controller pairing) at a lower price point to appeal to a wider market (cause portability in the household seems less useful, but just using another TV seems more common)
It certainly is a common occurrence, but I don’t see many households dropping another $200 on top of the cost of the PS5. If this existed back in the days, my parents would have told me to either play something else/go outside, or move the console to my room.
My experience with steam link was… Really bad. I also tried the stadia, terrible. Unless things have changed very recently streaming game tech just isn’t there yet.
Streaming steam has gotten better, but it really depends on the game. I’d never play a twitch shooter like counter strike on it, but before the Deck I’d stream the Witcher from my home PC to my tiny travel laptop and it was playable. Never as a primary driver though
I see a lot of comparisons to steam deck but none to Xbox.
You can literally use any phone or tablet for the same function as this with an Xbox, in addition to cloud streaming most game pass games without needing an Xbox at all.
If we saw Microsoft releasing an identical device I bet there wouldn’t be a single person defending it.
You can also use any phone or tablet to remote play on PS5.
What you’re buying here is convenience. A dedicated device with the exact same controller setup as an actual PS5, with the same features (haptics, triggers) and a nice screen with basically plug and play setup.
The article doesn’t seem to mention what OS this has, but if the earlier leaks are correct and it’s android, you could even use this to do that very same Xbox streaming.
I was on board with this for 150, 200 is just too much for it though
What I haven’t seen anyone mention yet: Since the Remote Play protocol is already reverse engineered (since there are open source remote play clients like Chiaki), it would not seem difficult to create a 3rd party Remote Play server for use on any PC. You could use this to stream your PC games on.
Dead on Arrival…
im more interested in the ear buds they announced. planar drivers for $200 or the over the ear with a mic for $150 are good deals afaik.
So you need a $500 console to use a $200 handheld streaming device that doesn’t have bluetooth so you probably will also buy a PS Link capable headphone that’ll cost another $200.
Those are some big bucks to avoid using steamdeck or switch.
It has a headphone jack.
Who owns wired headphones these days? It’s not 1875 anymore.
Yeah I know, but the kind of audience it’s targeting may not be carrying wired headphones to use with their streaming handheld that only works on WiFi.