PlayStation Portal review: impressive hardware but is Remote Play itself good enough?
PlayStation Portal review: impressive hardware but is Remote Play itself good enough?
The Digital Foundry verdict on PlayStation Portal with latency/lag and image quality tests.
I genuinely just don't understand the value proposition of this handheld. It's remote play only, with no standalone capabilities, that also only works with the PS5. You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product. Or if you're committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality, but also have a system that can not only play your PC games, but play like 5 generations of console games from the past
It's good for a niche market, people who have multiple people living in the house where they have to share a TV, but don't need to share the PlayStation. In that one niche it makes sense to me
In every other way though, why not a handheld?
I think that niche might be bigger and more normal than you think it is.
Why a handheld if 99% of people don't want to use it outside of the house and just want a home-portsble
Edit to just point out how disappointed I am in this community lately. It's become all the things that made me dislike reddit. The circlejerk here is just as strong, and all the discussions we had initially are gone in favor of updooting my opinion and downdooting everyone else.
Most of my games are on PlayStation. The Steam Deck is clearly the more powerful and capable device, but it is also more expensive and I have no need for any of the extra features. I love the ergonomics of the PS Portal (even though it looks silly), the haptics, the huge screen, and it all comes with a seamless integration into the PlayStation ecosystem. Plus there is no need to take the case off of my phone every time I want to play it unlike the Backbone.
It’s definitely not for everyone but they call it a DadStation for a reason ☺️.
steam deck is single-handedly the best gaming purchase i think i’ve ever made
You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product.
Your phone has an 8” screen and an integrated Dual Sense?
Or if you're committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality
Your Steam Deck has adaptive triggers and HD haptics? Mine doesn’t.
I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.
Funny how they pretend to ask a question, then downvote you when you give them an answer they don’t like.
It’s also half the price of the SD with a bigger resolution screen (bUt mUh oLEd). I pick it up, press like 2 buttons, and I’m playing in 20 sec. I was happy to pay for the convenience, have been using it a lot since I got it the day after the release.
Lol, would love to hear why on earth this is downvoted - guess we're in full on reddit mode and just downvoting everything that isn't exactly what I think lol
Honestly when it drops to $150 or so, I'm in. Mostly for these same reasons. I use the PS5 on the good TV, but if I wanna be in the room with my partner while they watch a trash reality show, and keep working on my game, this is perfect. At $200, I'll stick with remote play on Android and a Bluetooth controller, but the Portal seems better for this use case. So when the price is low enough... Sure.
I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.
I recommend you to do some research, it might not be that good for the only thing this gadget can do.
My phone is nearly a 7in screen, I could Bluetooth connect a Playstation controller and have the exact same functionality, using the hardware I already have. I get that if you don't have a phone with a bigger screen then this becomes more of a proposition as getting a newer device with a larger screen is gonna be north of $1k USD, so spending $200 to get a portable display and extra controller in a sense is not that bad value wise. I do see where people are seeing it being wasteful as other devices are capable just not at the same level, the only thing I'm wondering is how big is the market of people who wouldn't rather get a $5 phone holder for their ps5 controller and just use their phone. I see a couple people in this thread here but if most realized they could get a similar experience for $5 for a plastic phone clip would this really look as enticing?
I don't understand what market the PlayStation Portal was designed for.
You're basically paying £200 for a DualSense controller MacGyver'd on a tablet screen that can only remote play PS5 games or stream from PSNow. There are both cheaper and better options which support not just Sony's ecosystem but also other gaming platforms.
Not to mention that cloud gaming in general just sucks.
It can’t even stream from PSNow it’s just for remote play lol
Cloud gaming doesn't suck though. As long as you have good Internet, it's awesome. I have several thousand hours with cloud gaming and couldn't have played any of those games otherwise, very rarely have any issues.
Same here og 2020 stadia user here although I wouldn't necessarily call cloud gaming ideal
pc gaming is the way to go nowadays with Cheap games on steam and free games on epic games
sometimes on gogplus playing online is free and nowadays you can build yourself a very cheap rx 480/570miners are trying get rid of there stocki5 4450/i7 3770 pc for very cheaply pair that with a 60gb ssd and above for a boot drive and a 1tb hdd and your gaming
I was under the impression it was a lot more than $200, but that still seems costly for what it does. For $100 more you can get an AYN Odin 2 which does a hell of a lot more stuff for the price.
I mean it's an 8in 1080p touch screen display at 60hz, the panel is probably around $60, the hardware is probably like a pi zero so $20, and a controller $70. So just on hardware this is probably around $120 after taking into account supply chain discounts. Then, manufacturing costs, and they probably don't even have that high of a profit margin on the device. Add in a $100 for the actually chip set and yeah you get more features but it's not that crazy imo. Just a niche market for sure.
For twice the price you get a base model steam deck
They could at least add Vita compatibility and it'll instantly has hundreds of games available. A shame since Vita itself can play PSP and PS1 titles.
Sony, adding Vita support to this product? Dude, they didn't even add Wifi 6, I think that was easier and definitely would work to their end goal 😆
Adding "vita compatibility" would require including a psvita inside it. As well as extra inputs on the back. All for games people didn't actually ever want. You can however play (some) ps1 and psp games on the thing via the ps5
Hardware-wise, vita is nothing special. It's just an arm cortex device, which means Sony will have much easier time making the runtime works on newer arm processor. They don't even need to port the whole os, just the runtime would be enough. If a bunch of volunteer can make vita runtime from scratch on their own free time (and managed to get various Android games running on vita runtime too), there is no reason Sony which have access to the source code can't do it with less time.
No need for extra touchpad in the rear either. Vita TV didn't have it and work fine without it too.
Betteridge's law of headlines says no.