The PS Portal was just one step. The remote player cannot be qualified as a portable console strictly speaking, in that it only allows you to retrieve the image of a PS5 or, more recently, of a game launched via the cloud. But, according to Bloomberg, the Japanese firm is indeed working on the design of a brand new portable console.
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Objective: compete with Nintendo
The hatchet is dug up. At least, that’s what journalist Takashi Mochizuki thinks he knows, who reported the news. According to him, Sony would therefore be at the beginning of the development of a new portable console which would clearly aim to chip away at Nintendo and its Switch.
After the PSP and the Vita, which were designed to compete with Nintendo in the portable console segment, Sony gradually withdrew from the market, thus leaving the field open to its rival. A competitor which, between the Nintendo 3DS (75 million units sold) and the Nintendo Switch (almost 150 million units sold), dominates a market that has been left fallow.
However, it appears that Sony would not be the only one seeking to cut a slice of this juicy cake. Last week, Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, announced that his company was indeed working on a portable Xbox.
The many challenges awaiting Sony
So there is Nintendo, soon Xbox, but also the whole host of brands of PC accessories and peripherals which, in recent years, have invested massively in the portable console market. Valve’s Steam Deck is spreading and the Asus ROG Ally is just one of the many references to have hit the market recently.
The advantage of these machines is their versatility. They can launch PC games via Steam, but also access the entire catalog of Xbox Game Pass or other online subscription services. Sony will therefore have a lot to do to convince players that its solution, which we imagine to be proprietary and limited to games from its own stable, is more worth the detour.
Because the question of games will obviously arise. With the video game industry being what it is in 2024, the mood is one of cost cutting and massive layoffs. We must capitalize on what works – which explains in particular why the PS VR2 is relegated to the background. Also, it is hard to imagine Sony giving the green light to the development of titles exclusive to its future portable console. To hope to have a chance, the current PS5 catalog will have to be able to run natively on Sony’s portable console or act as a companion device for the inevitable future PS6.
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