Sony designing standalone portable games console to do battle with Microsoft and Nintendo says report

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However, insiders say the device may be still 'years away.'

Sony PlayStation Q Lite handheld rumors
(Image credit: Sony)

Sony is working on a portable gaming console that will aim to compete against Nintendo and Microsoft, according to reports. This portable gaming device will allow gamers to play Playstation 5 games irrespective of the location, unlike the PlayStation Portal which is a connected remote play device. However, the standalone device may still be "years away from launch," leaving plenty of time for Sony to change or abandon the project.

Earlier, Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer said that the development of a portable Xbox gaming device would take a few more years, which now seems similar to Sony. Nintendo is a major player in the handheld gaming market, and its next-gen Switch is expected to be released next year.

Sony's spokesperson declined to comment regarding its plans.

In recent years portable gaming has evolved dramatically with Valve's Steam Deck and its newer OLED version making big waves. This encouraged others to step into the market- namely Asus, Lenovo Legion, Logitech, MSI, and many more. The major benefits both Microsoft and Sony have are their wide collection of games in their libraries and the ability to attract more IPs and developers for their platforms- either exclusive or cross-platform - by indie and AAA studios.

Making a portable device to work with the PlayStation 5's games will take time as it will need suitable hardware and specially optimized firmware. Since this project is still in its initial design phase, it remains a distinct possibility that Sony may change the design goal or abandon it completely.

The State of Portable Gaming- Then Vs. Now

Sony is familiar with the portable gaming market, as it released the original PlayStation Portable, PSP Vita, and PSP GO years ago. According to Bloomberg's earlier report, the PlayStation Portal was meant to be a standalone device, but the company ended up opting for a remote gaming device with an 8-inch screen that wirelessly streams games from the user's PlayStation 5 via WiFi.

Irrespective of its success with the PSP in the past, Sony has many competitors now. Sony will also be competing with cloud gaming services that are device agnostic - led by Nvidia with GeForce Now and Microsoft's Xbox cloud gaming offerings.

There are major benefits to going portable, as it opens its offerings to a wider audience base who may not play games on either PC, cloud, or console. If Sony decides against marketing a new portable, it is going to be the only gaming platform not to enter the handheld gaming market.

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Roshan Ashraf Shaikh
Contributing Writer

Roshan Ashraf Shaikh has been in the Indian PC hardware community since the early 2000s and has been building PCs, contributing to many Indian tech forums, & blogs. He operated Hardware BBQ for 11 years and wrote news for eTeknix & TweakTown before joining Tom's Hardware team. Besides tech, he is interested in fighting games, movies, anime, and mechanical watches.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Heat_Fan89
    Good luck with that. I've learned my lesson with Sony products. How long did it take for Sony to bail on the PS Vita because they priced it the same as a PS3 and their proprietary memory cards were insanely priced?

    How long did it take for Sony to bail on their PSVR2 after pricing it more than a PlayStation 5 and not properly supporting it with unique 1st party games?

    This has niche and failure written all over it. Even the Steam Deck is niche along with other PC handhelds. I remember not long ago how Alienware made their console like systems for Steam and that didn't last long, because they cost a lot, were not upgradeable and were niche.

    Nintendo continues to own the handheld market and they have showed for decades that it's about the games, not the hardware. The Nintendo Switch has just widen the gap to everyone else. Just because Nintendo is successful in the handheld space doesn't mean that Sony and Microsoft will make it a success.
    Reply
  • ivan_vy
    I loved my PSP, the console need to be powerful enough to tap into the last generation games (PS5) and able to stream from PS6 and the cloud, also not away away from game pass, GFNow and the likes.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    Nintendo continues to own the handheld market and they have showed for decades that it's about the games, not the hardware.
    exactly.Nintendo (love em or hate em) beats to its own thing and why they've been untouchable in handheld even if spec wise theres better options.
    They found out most people dont care about newest hardware if the content is great.

    ivan_vy said:
    the console need to be powerful enough to tap into the last generation games (PS5) and able to stream from PS6 and the cloud
    won't happen as would make their PS Portal future versions worthless.
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    hotaru251 said:
    exactly.Nintendo (love em or hate em) beats to its own thing and why they've been untouchable in handheld even if spec wise theres better options.
    They found out most people dont care about newest hardware if the content is great.


    won't happen as would make their PS Portal future versions worthless.
    The main issue Sony doesn't get, is that even the Steam Deck and all its clones by Lenovo, ASUS etc are all niche products, including the Steam Deck. Sony loves to bail on its own PlayStation products when the numbers look bad. The PS Vita which I own was a lovely piece of kit, especially the OLED screen. Sony blew all that away by pricing it the same as the PS3 Slim, $299 and the memory cards were ridiculously priced as well.

    Their PS Portal is basically a regurgitated PS Vita because that's what Sony turned that into, a streaming device that allowed you to stream PS4 games via the internet.

    Nintendo is a rare breed as you've indicated. They do things their way much like Apple when Steve Jobs was in charge. But with Nintendo they have incredible game designers that somehow always seem to pull a rabbit out of their hats because even their franchise IP's always offers a new twist to attract the attention of gamers.

    Which is why I'm not sold that their will be a Nintendo Switch 2. It could be something totally different where Nintendo cooks up something entirely new. We should find out next year what their next system will look like.
    Reply
  • Ogotai
    hotaru251 said:
    They found out most people dont care about newest hardware if the content is great.
    and thats why i own all of the nintendo systems.. and bought the original x box, used, as nintendo has the games that i want to play...
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    Ogotai said:
    and thats why i own all of the nintendo systems.. and bought the original x box, used, as nintendo has the games that i want to play...
    Nintendo has the world's best game designers. Their games appeal too and can put a childlike smile on both young and very old alike. They just have a knack for making "fun look easy". The only game that I can recall that comes close to Nintendo fun is the new Astro Bots for the PS5. That's a rarity.
    Reply
  • edzieba
    Heat_Fan89 said:
    How long did it take for Sony to bail on the PS Vita because they priced it the same as a PS3 and their proprietary memory cards were insanely priced?
    Last physical release was in 2019 when sales of the console itself were discontinued, and acceptance of digital store submissions ended 2021, so between 8 and 10 years.
    For comparison, the Nintendo 3DS was also launched in 2011, and was discontinued in 2020, so broadly comparable lifespans. Launch-to-discontinue for the PSP was 10 years (from first version launch to last version discontinue), for the Nintendo DS 10 years (from DS launch to DSi discontinue) and for the Gameboy Advance 8-9 years depending on region, making around a decade the normal lifespan for a handheld console.
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    edzieba said:
    Last physical release was in 2019 when sales of the console itself were discontinued, and acceptance of digital store submissions ended 2021, so between 8 and 10 years.
    For comparison, the Nintendo 3DS was also launched in 2011, and was discontinued in 2020, so broadly comparable lifespans. Launch-to-discontinue for the PSP was 10 years (from first version launch to last version discontinue), for the Nintendo DS 10 years (from DS launch to DSi discontinue) and for the Gameboy Advance 8-9 years depending on region, making around a decade the normal lifespan for a handheld console.
    It was a rhetorical question but it was dead way before that because high profile games were pretty much non-existant and it was basically indie games on the PS Vita Store. The PS Vita was already in a critical state a few years after launch, much like the PSVR2. I owned two PS Vita both with OLED displays. They were really nice handhelds but gamers got a sour taste when the games were priced too high and memory cards were priced thru the roof.

    It didn't help Sony's cause when both the PS Vita memory cards looked pretty close to Micro SD cards. Gamers questioned Sony's tactics. Sony did a nice job with the system's security as Jailbreaking it took a long time.

    That's one reason why the original PSP was such a hit because it was easy to hack.
    Reply
  • das_stig
    Sony has the experience with PSP, has the gaming infrastructure to support it and most the hard technical work has been done by other designs, and it will use an AMD cpu, so just another clone of a clone of a clone, it isn't going to innovate, but it will play your desktop Playstation games, even if they emulate the PSxx
    Reply
  • Heat_Fan89
    das_stig said:
    Sony has the experience with PSP, has the gaming infrastructure to support it and most the hard technical work has been done by other designs, and it will use an AMD cpu, so just another clone of a clone of a clone, it isn't going to innovate, but it will play your desktop Playstation games, even if they emulate the PSxx
    But that's not encouraging really. They blew it with the PSP when they priced UMD games and movies too high as well as their memory sticks. Afterwards we saw third party memory sticks but games for the system started to slowdown. What kept the PSP alive, I hate to say it was piracy.

    Sony then talks up the PS Vita and everyone got excited about the handheld. I bought a launch unit and it was great but a funny thing, happened. Sony didn't learn from the PSP. They again priced games too high, sold the system at the same price point as the PS3 Slim and this time the expansion memory sticks were outrageously priced.

    That's one of the reasons why the PSVR2 is suffering the same fate as the PSP and PS Vita. The system cost more at launch than the PS5 with a disc drive.

    So I would not say the next handheld is a given for success. The reason the PlayStation home console is a success is because it is typically priced right to match the competition although Sony arrogantly blew that up with the launch of the PS3 by pricing the 60GB unit at $599.
    Reply