Sony appears to be jumping back into the handheld fray. Thanks to the success of the Nintendo Switch, Valve’s Steam Deck and several Windows handhelds like the ROG Ally X, portable gaming devices are all the rage, and the PlayStation maker is rumored to be creating a portable PS5. This would be the first true handheld from Sony since the demise of the PS Vita in 2019. The company did release its PlayStation Portal in 2023, but that device is more of a way to play the PS5 remotely instead of its own console.
If the rumors are true and Sony is making a portable PS5, some important features will make or break the console. Here’s what I want to see with a portable PS5.
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No proprietary media or storage
Sony famously created its own memory cards and media for its two handhelds: the PSP and PS Vita. The PSP used Sony’s Memory Stick Pro Duo cards for storage, while games were put on UMD discs, which were a fraction of the size of CDs. The PS Vita used PS Vita Memory Cards for storage and the games were on flash memory cards. Many owners of the PSP and PS Vita never cared for any of the proprietary storage as they tended to be more expensive and offer less space than the options easily available. Sony should keep the portable PS5 restricted to an internal M.2 SSD drive that can be upgraded easily and a slot for a microSD card for additional storage. There’s no need to overcomplicate things.
Keep the price reasonable
The Steam Deck starts at $400 and is the performance equivalent to a PS4. It’s safe to say that shrinking down a PS5 isn’t going to be cheap. Development of this new portable is going to take years, and in that time, the components are going to come down in price which should help with the affordability of the device. Keeping it within the $500 to $600 range is going to be tough for Sony to pull off, but anything more than that, and it’s unlikely gamers will buy it, especially if the PS6 is not that far off.
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Energy-saving option
I have little doubt that a portable PS5 is going to be an energy hog. The Steam Deck can last between 2 and 8 hours, depending on the game and the graphic settings. That’s understandable, and I wouldn’t expect much more from Sony with a portable PS5. What I do expect from Sony is a way to game without using a lot of battery life, and that’s by playing in the cloud.
What Sony should do is make cloud gaming an option but also make that option much more battery-friendly. The PlayStation Portal does remote play and cloud gaming, and powering it is a budget Qualcomm processor. If anything, what drains the most power from the PlayStation Portal is its 8-inch HD LCD.
Sony should take a page out of the playbook for some gaming laptops and include a barebones internal setup for cloud gaming. The portable console would quickly switch to low-power integrated graphics to handle playing on the cloud while consuming far less energy. If Sony can say that the PS5 portable can play for around 10 to 12 hours with the caveat that it’s on the cloud, that would be a big selling point.
Make it easy to connect
One frustrating aspect of portable gaming devices right now is that they don’t offer easy connections to peripherals and accessories. Right out of the box, a portable PS5 should be able to connect to a TV via a USB-C-to-HDMI cable, pair with an additional PlayStation controller either wirelessly or wired, and it should connect with whatever headphones or earbuds you already own, either through Bluetooth, USB-C or 3.5mm jack. This console will be a portable device so it should be as easy to connect to whatever peripherals as easy as an iPad. Sony should make it imperative that with the right gear setup, someone can have the same visual and audible experience as a PS5 from anywhere.
Offer seamless transition
It’s likely that the people who will buy a portable PS5 will also be PS5 owners because they want to take their games on the go. If that’s the case, Sony really needs to make it easy to go from gaming on the console to handheld. I’d like to see a handoff feature similar to what Apple does with its devices. When a portable PS5 is close to the home PS5, the portable should be ready to take control of the action at a moment’s notice and vice versa. Ideally, a game could be paused on the home console and then unpaused on the portable PS5. No need to log in, boot up or connect; just a seamless jump from one device to another, and off you go with your game. That would be a huge selling point for gamers who are taking their games on their commute, on a big road trip or just to another room.
Read More: What I Want From a PS5 Portable Console
