PlayStation's plucky little PS5 remote option, the PS Portal, continues to be a pleasant surprise for everyone involved, Sony included. The initially iffy-sounding device has proven to be wildly popular, and PlayStation has released an accolades trailer to remind us of the fact, featuring glowing quotes from some of the most powerful and feared video game outlets in existence.
In his review, Push Square's Aaron Bayne wrote that the device "feels fantastic in the hand", but Sony cut that down for its own inscrutable marketing purposes. Since releasing in November of last year, the Portal has gone from strength to strength, becoming more popular than expected and proving almost all predictions wrong. With Sony acknowledging this, could we see another dedicated handheld out of the firm?
Rumours have been swirling about Sony returning to the space, which it entirely ceded to Nintendo following the slow, tragic death of the PS Vita, with surprising competitors like Valve's Steam Deck stepping up. In February, however, known hardware leakster Moore's Law is Dead alleged that a new PlayStation handheld is in the works. Whether the rumoured device would be a dedicated handheld or a companion piece to the inevitable PS6 remains unclear, but one thing's sure: Sony knows there is demand in the audience for a handheld, and we hope it capitalises.
Has the PS Portal become a welcome part of your gaming arsenal? If Sony decides to return to the handheld game, would you prefer a dedicated device or an enhanced streaming companion? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 45
I love mine. I wish I could do more to evangelize - simply because I think a lot of people would find it very useful and reliable. YMMV, but I haven't even needed to hard-wire my PS5 to make it work ultra-reliably (which I've heard is very necessary for some people). With a newborn at home, the Portal is a godsend.
I mean it is the number one accessory in the US for Q1 and I've seen most who own it be quite positive towards it. It is a device for single tv households and I think that it suits that purpose well. It was number 2 on Amazon Japans best sellers in Gaming last month. In the UK it goes out of stock within a day or two.
I think the time has come to just ignore online consensus and actually use critical thinking to understand why a product is being made before passing judgement.
If they thought this was wildly popular, imagine if they crammed a PS4 inside it.
In the meantime I still keep trying to convince myself to buy a Portal.
I like mine. To love it, software updates are needed to eliminate frame drops (or massively reduce them) and reduce latency. The compression artifacts can be severe, but I can tolerate them.
EDIT: And one thing totally baffles me: When using the Portal or any Remote Play streaming, you often can’t choose „Headphones“ and never „3D headphones“, and I see no technical reason for it. Sony could easily change that!
I think it's a great little device, that being said I do wish it did a little more. For one example, while playing Balatro I enjoy listening to Spotify but it doesn’t support that. It’s just weird decisions like that where I’m like why not you know.
I'm very pleased with mine.
Gaming anywhere in the house or garden if I choose.
Got very fast internet with excellent bandwidth and mesh system.
Daughter likes to use it to play PGA Tour from her room. Bless.
Took it to work and streamed a few games to show them, the 2 other people who own PS5s were so impressed they been trying to get one for weeks.
At this very moment, 7:30am, they are available for £199 from Amazon, (not some marketplace seller).
Fix the known issue with refresh rate mismatch (PS5 is 59.94hz, Portal is 60hz) that causes constant stutter Sony, and then we'll talk. And no, having to change multiple PS5 settings manually every time I use it to try and coax out performance is not the answer... Mine is a good-looking brick on the sideboard until then.
I love mine. I had the kishi razor 2 before but that felt wrong and too small. This is perfect and I actually prefer playing on it than on the big screen especially for older back catalogue games. It has probably doubled my playtime.
Getting recognized by papa Sony like that must feel nice.
Congrats PS, you totally earned it!
i wonder what a certain PSVR2 enthusiast here thinks about this ? 👀
Managed to get many hours of enjoyment playing Rebirth and Unicorn Overlord remotely via the Portal. Of course, I had to configure router settings to get it working outside of my home connection (setting up a dedicated backport) but it was all worthwhile!
My Portal arrived yesterday, and first impression was "wow - this is BIIIIG" (my comparison is my switch lite and my iPhone 14 pro max). Set up and using was flawless, all around the house.
I have my PS5 cabled up to my router, so I'm expecting that to contribute to the performance.
I've bought a Backbone One (PS edition) last year and I have enjoyed using that, so didn't really see the point in a Portal.
However, what won me over was the screen real estate; I wanted to play my PS4/5 games on a bigger screen than my phone, so I could justify a dedicated device for that.
As my gaming-on-the-tv time has reduced, due to having to adult too much, the Portal gives me that PS4/5 handheld gaming experience I can't get from the Backbone (or my poor, sweet PS Vita any more).
I love my Portal but the fact Sony didn't back it (low stock, low functionality, low build quality, low features) has alarm bells sounding in my head for their future hardware.
I can't think of any logical reason why they wouldn't go all-in on a handheld in 2023. Do Sony not have a research department? Do Sony not see the success of Switch? Do the Sony Exec's, shareholders and funders kids' not all own a Switch?
There's being cautious and then there's being incompetent.
Then you throw into the mix PS VR... over budget, overstock, lack of demand. You honestly wouldn't believe it if you hadn't seen it for yourself. How on earth do Sony operate this way?
(Side note: and how are Microsoft STILL so far behind even despite this?!)
Oh, and even if Sony NOW go all-in on a handheld... well a round of applause for ripping off your core audience with the Portal in the meantime? It's bonkers. Seriously, is it any wonder the industry is struggling right now?
We, the consumers, have done our bit. We buy the expensive hardware, we buy more games than we can even play. What has the industry achieved in the past 5 years or so?
And yes, Nintendo are a success story of sorts... but they're a decade behind and benefit from the previous Sony/Microsoft groundwork - in a hardware sense anyway.
"Rumours have been swirling about Sony returning to space"
Learn something new everyday, I now know I'm funding aliens 😜
Seriously though, I bought my Portal off ebay a few months ago as its out of stock everywhere and still is, you would think they would ramp up production if it's so successful for them. So far I've enjoyed my time with it, feels great to hold and the streaming experience has been flawless so far even with playing online games like HellDivers 2. My only negative for the Portal is it's battery life, which so far averages around 3 hours.
@TheOldHunter4K
Ordered thanks for the headsup
@nocdaes keep in mind that even though 3ds performed incredibly well, psvita didn't. So, just because Switch (which has exclusives and is the only Nintendo console available at the moment) is doing well, it doesn't mean that other handhelds will also perform well. And since portal can't do as much as Steamdeck does (e.g. play games natively), they had every reason to avoid going all in.
Just get the ps plus streaming on it like is possible
@naruball I'd agree with you on this, but for the fact they went ahead with PS VR2. Sony have clearly backed the wrong horse, but it was also so easily avoided that I honestly can't believe some heads haven't rolled over it!
My Portal has been my favorite purchase in years, I wish it could get a little more attention, maybe bring Plus streaming to it.
I have quite enjoyed mine. I have good streaming quality most of the time and my PS5 isn’t even hard wired. But I know there are some variables and some people’s internet setup might not be ideal for streaming. But everything I’ve read online seems to suggest the Portal does as good or better of a job than any other device. The main two competitors being the Steam Deck using Chiaki and the Backbone using your smartphone. Portal streams better and feels better in your hands with legit DualSense features. It’s about $100 more than a Backbone and $3-400 less than a Steam Deck. I’d say that’s perfectly placed in the market.
For me the big advantage is also that I don’t have to buy a single game for it. After my $200 investment, I’m done. My entire existing PlayStation library (over 300 games accumulated over the years, not to mention the other 300 on PS+ Extra that I have access to) is there to use on it. If I got a Steam Deck I’d have to invest in building a library and it would cost hundreds more.
I still think that the huge showcase games are best experienced on the big screen, but that’s nothing against the Portal. It’s like watching Oppenheimer on your phone — its a perfectly viable option, but is it really the way you want to experience that? 😅 However the Portal is a great fit for the games that aren’t the major spectacle pieces or have grinding aspects that you can do while watching sports or laying in bed. I’m playing Midnight Suns right now on it. Would be great for Balatro, Dave the Diver, Unicorn Overlord, etc, etc.
What is the connection frequency strength like on this thing when going into a different room, can it stay stable?, I wouldn't mind getting one for chill out days in bed, I don't want to be moving the console all the time.
I have 300+Mbps download & 80+Mbps upload.
I mean, between the two costly PS5 peripherals without autonomous functionality, I'd personally still deem Portal a much more rewarding investment than VR2.😅
@nhSnork Have you actually tried the VR2 though? If you have, then fair enough. I've personally had some of the best gaming experiences of my life playing it. But everyone is different
I would get next to no use out of a portal, but I'm glad to see it's done well and found it's audience
@TedLassoNikes only the first PSVR with RE7, to be fair, but for a good enough while, and sadly found but a less than wieldy headmounted first person camera controller whose motion sickness concerns forced restrictive controls on the characters' own movements (you could only turn around so many degrees at a time, which made the garage faceoff alone much more of a chore than it was likely ever envisioned as).
Perhaps there are more inventive uses for the tech by now, but I expect nothing to fulfil the promise of actual VR that the fictional worlds like SAO, BoFuri or even Ready Player One describe. Heck, forget SAO, VR.5 visualized the possibilities in the 1995 and we're still not remotely there despite having long moved on from the rest of the respective fictionverse's stuff like CRT monitors.
I would love one of these, for the first party experience, but I find chiaki on the Steam Deck works incredibly well. I’m not sure I’d gain anything from the portal besides a more familiar controller.
I just put the PS remote play on my steamdeck so I feel like this is really not worth it now at least for me
Had mine at launch, the lag & latency was terrible. Sold it on unfortunately. But I purchased a Steam deck and loving it.
I love my Portal ❤️
While I am sure it's useful for some, I have a laptop on a TV tray next to me in the living that I can quickly hookup my PS5 Controller to and use Remote Play when the TV is occupied by stuff I couldn't care less about.
Money. Saved.
Congrats to Sony, though!
I love it and use it almost every day. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft has planned for their rumored handheld. Hopefully it will play games natively.
I got one last weekend and it's already been very helpful in allowing me to do something more interesting while my Mrs watched the TV that she's interested in. I haven't played anything too crazy on it yet - the most twitchy game I've tried so far was a level 5 dive on Helldivers 2 with two buddies taking the lead - but it's a wonderful little device.
My PS5 is upstairs and isn't wired but have 1G fibre. Would be using this in bed in the room beside the room the PS5 is in. Anyone else have a setup like that. Any issues and should I get it?
@TedLassoNikes PSVR2 is great, think the problem with it is the lack of big games. Though saying that I haven't been keeping up with any VR news as the screens on mine went bad after 3 weeks. Sony gave me a refund
Still a shame its ecosystem locked. The G Cloud is overpriced but is the only light weight long battery streaming unit along with the very pocket sized Retroids that just let you do any platform or service without tinkering with it. I do envy the large screen ,but having a G Cloud already, a PS-dedicated version of the same thing is just throwing money away.
@nocdaes I'd up-vote a few times if I could. That really summarizes the whole gaming industry, from core to mobile, it's a captive audience with low impulse control that's exploited to the marrow. They operate like the gambling industry because its consumers behave like gamblers. Release the first product, expensively, as a test balloon for a future real product seems to be the way it goes, using the early adopters to absorb all risk. No other industry gets away with that.
MS staying behind, I think comes down to the 2013 X1 launch disaster and Sony's clever capitalizing on it created a permanent perception in the core/early adopter/evangelist market of green bad, blue good. As the early adopters go, so goes everyone else, and once a critical mass goes that way, it's all momentum from there. Everyone gets what their friends get, then the next gen everyone is locked into a digital and accessory ecosystem so changing isn't cost effective. Meanwhile Sony spends a shedload on marketing to keep reinforcing the perception of their exceptionalism, while MS spends.....idk, do they advertise at all?
Though PSVR2 is an excellent platform. Held back by too high a price, some iffy design decisions, launching at a bizarre time, launching direct-to-consumer only, but most of all ignored by the company from day 1. Sony standard fashion. Release the high priced accessory, gauge interest by sales, ignore it immediately if sales response is below target. It's how they treat every single hardware device they make including TVs. And it's a shame because it's a great product, but instead of loss-leading to build a market, which is exactly how they built Playstation itself in the face of Nintendo and Sega owning the market with an iron fist, they just threw the thing out there for an expected return.
What's really amazing is their whole business model seems to be risk-averse and bent on exploiting a captive market so they never have to take a risk of loss, even if it means abandoning their products quickly. And yet they're still out of budget. They should be rolling in cash like Nintendo with a model like that but they somehow still spend it as fast as they pull it in.
LOVE my Portal. I only wish it had the ability to open a web page which some wifi networks require in order to connect.
@Nexozi I have an extremely similar setup and it works great everywhere in my 3 story house. I even brought it with me to my little brothers apartment about an hour from home and he has crap basic internet and it somehow worked even better there! I was even able to play a few rounds of Fortnite with ease which requires good, stable connection!
Everyone's lifestyle is different so whether or not you should get it depends on a lot of factors but its been glorious for me!
I'm the perfect market for a streaming handheld, I just can't justify the price on the Portal to only play PS5 stuff. So I'm trying to find myself a Logitech G Cloud on the cheap so I can also stream from my PC.
I'm still massively torn on this.
On the one hand, it's another overpriced, underpowered luxury accessory from Sony.
On the other hand, I could play my PS5 a lot more whilst my wife is hogging the TV watching Below Deck.
@invictus4000 Sold! Just ordered one, so hopefully get it for next weekend.
When it works the portal is dope. I use it at work on breaks but depending where I'm at the connection can get choppy and will disconnect me. I connect it through hotspot on my phone. Overall I'm glad I bought one.
@stu123 I’m tempted but fear I may experience same issues. Remote play via my iPad is unplayable. I’m interested where you bought it from / did you have any issues returning as you’d have obviously taken it out of the box etc so wondering if returns were an issue. If I could get one and easily return it if rubbish performance with my set up I’d be more tempted but don’t want to be stuck with a £200 paperweight! Thanks.
@stu123 Thanks!
While PS5 in our home works primary as YT, NFX and D+ player, there is no place for PS Portal, because I cannot run game on it while watching above mentioned media. So I still need separated device and Switch fits me perfectly (except asymmetrical sticks).
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