Sony’s Rumored Gaming Handheld Has an Impossible Job

After starting strong with the original PlayStation Portable, Sony’s handheld gaming ambitions have faltered somewhat. Now, with the Switch closing in on the PlayStation 2’s sales records, it seems that the gaming giant might be eyeing the portable market once again.

What the Rumors Say

First, it’s important to underline the fact that these are just rumors. As reported by Bloomberg (subscription required), it seems that Sony has begun early development on a handheld system purportedly capable of playing PlayStation 5 games natively. This is likely in response to Nintendo’s dominance with its Switch console, and rumors that Xbox is eyeing a handheld system as well.

Beyond these core facts, we don’t know anything concrete, and there’s no guarantee that either of these handhelds will ever be released during this generation. The simple fact is that creating devices as capable as the rumors suggest would mean overcoming some pretty daunting challenges.

Are Native PS5 Games Even Possible?

The first question that comes to mind when considering a handheld that plays PS5 games natively (i.e. on the device and not the cloud) is how practical that is. We currently have handheld gaming PCs that have comparable performance somewhere between a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro, depending on the game in question.

These devices, like the ROG Ally and my current handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, need to suck down almost 30W of power in order to hit those performance metrics, and if you want decent battery life you’ll have to take a hit to that performance level.

A standard PlayStation 5 can use up to around 220W, which is actually very power efficient compared to a desktop PC of similar performance, but impractical for battery power. So, the only way to make a handheld that can play PS5 games is to cut the games themselves down somehow to fit within the power and performance envelope that can be achieved with mobile hardware.

Lenovo Legion Go

Although not without its issues, the Lenovo Legion Go’s large display, removable controllers, and versatility make it a top choice among PC gaming handhelds.

Of course, we don’t know what sort of timeline is involved here, since it may very well be that the next generation of mobile hardware (e.g. the AMD Z2 Extreme as reported by Tom’s Hardware) could bring this closer to a reality. I would guess that as with the PlayStation 5, Sony would partner with AMD to create a custom system-on-a-chip that’s aggressive on the power efficiency front, but no matter how you slice it, these games would be running at much lower settings and resolutions.

The Series S Problem Applies

The Xbox Series S is a lower-performance version of the Xbox Series X, or perhaps the other way around is more true. All games made for Xbox must work on the Series S, and so some people have described the cheaper console as a bit of a boat anchor for game development. Whereas with the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, the baseline is on par with current-generation expectations, and the Pro just provides a premium cherry on top.

If Sony introduces a handheld system that can play the PS5 library, this would likely require cooperation from hundreds of developers to retool their games to run on the handheld system. I can’t see any way Sony could achieve this across the board without developers putting in some legwork, so it’s likely that such a handheld might play all PS4 games, but only a subset of PS5 games.

The Series S “problem” rears its head if Sony will require that all future games for the PlayStation 5 have a portable version, which means developers have to target the handheld first, and then scale up from there.

On the other hand, given how the PlayStation Vita failed, Sony probably realizes that any modern handheld won’t survive if it has a split library. This is what Nintendo realized with the Switch, which combined development resources into one platform. So any handheld from either Sony or Xbox will have to play the same games as the big home consoles. Likewise, handheld PCs are successful, because they run the same software as large gaming laptops and desktops. There’s no schism in the platform.

Sony Already Has a Cloud Handheld

For reasons I don’t quite understand, Sony’s streaming-only Portal device has proven popular, despite any tablet, handheld, or computer offering the exact same Remote Play functionality. The device makes a little more sense now that Sony has started a cloud streaming beta, which means you can use the portal to stream cloud games without needing a PlayStation 5.

What makes me wonder, is why Sony thinks the cloud handheld it has won’t be enough to cover the handheld needs of its customers. Certainly, hardcore gamers (myself included) would prefer a native device that does not rely on an internet connection to work, but I don’t think that’s true for the mainstream audience who make up the bulk of PlayStation owners.

Handheld PCs Can Already Play Sony Exclusives

Sony has made significant investments in order to bring its first-party games to PC, and so handheld PCs will inevitably play every Sony exclusive eventually, assuming that Sony continues to port them over. We get to tweak them according to the hardware, and as handheld PC hardware improves, so will the performance and fidelity of these games.

For games that aren’t PlayStation exclusives, well, those are virtually all on PC as well. So, functionally, a handheld PC and the handheld PS5 would only differ in the sense that the PC can do more stuff.

The only real arguments I could see for an in-house Sony handheld would be aggressive price-to-performance, and ease of use. Which are both nothing to sniff at, but depending on when this rumored handheld will launch, handheld PC technology may have advanced so much that it won’t be all that appealing.

The Switch Has a Better Business Model

The ROG Ally next to an OLED Nintendo Switch. Both devices offer impressive screens in their own right.

We all expect the Switch 2 (or whatever it ends up being named) to simply copy the current Switch’s business model. That’s probably the right move, because Nintendo has nailed the right way to offer a unified handheld and TV console library. There is only one console in a handheld form factor. When it’s plugged in it can use more power and run at faster speeds. However, the gap between handheld and docked mode isn’t vast.

For a PlayStation handheld that’s part of the PlayStation 5 stack, on the other hand, there’s going to be a huge performance gap between the handheld version and the home console. Will buyers have to buy both? Will the handheld offer a docked mode? There are an endless number of technical and marketing questions Sony will have to solve for this idea to even work, but if it ever sees the light of day, I’d love to see how they do it.