Lots of people that are discussing the PlayStation Portal seem to have a strong opinion of it with many thinking that it is a misstep made by Sony. I agree that it's a misstep, but I'm hopeful that Sony either knows what they're doing (they probably don't) or plans to at least bring cloud streaming to the PlayStation Portal. But before I continue describing my thoughts on Sony's gaming handheld, I'll describe the product itself.
The PlayStation Portal is a remote play gaming device which means that the handheld can't play games on its own. Instead, you'll need to use a PS5 to play games on the Portal. The device features an 8” 1080p LCD screen that’s capable of 60 frames per second. It also has many of the features of the Dualsense wireless controller, including haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, responsive vibrations, and dynamic resistance which mimics the tension of interactions with in‑game gear and objects.
Now the PlayStation portal does have a few odd down sides. One of them is that the device can't be connected to bluetooth headphones, which is odd considering that seemingly every electronic device nowadays can connect to bluetooth headphones. Instead of using bluetooth headphones, the only two wireless headphones available to use with the PlayStation Portal are the $150 Pulse Elite headset and the $200 Pulse Explore earbuds. Both these headphones use PlayStation Link, a lossless low latency audio format. If you don't have these products and you want to use headphones, you'll have to use wired headphones with your PlayStation Portal.
Another down side to Sony's latest device is that it does not support games that are streamed through PlayStation Plus Premium’s cloud streaming service. Now this is really strange. If the PlayStation Portal is a device that plays games over WIFI then why can't it stream games over WIFI? It should obviously be able to do this. The reason it can't do this may simply be because Sony does not want this product to have any potential of being a standalone product.
Not allowing the PlayStation Portal to have any potential of being a standalone product I think is a mistake. Sony is missing a big opportunity to increase the popularity of their cloud gaming service. Customers may even be willing to pay higher prices for the PlayStation Portal if it could be used as a dedicated cloud gaming handheld. I think if Sony made the PlayStation Portal into this type of gaming device, then it would definitely be worth buying. But paying $199 for a remote play gaming device on top of the hundreds of dollars needed to buy a PlayStation 5 may be a tough sell to consumers.
The PlayStation Portal doesn't sound like a really bad product, but that sets a low bar for success. Really, for the product to be successful it needs to be more than just an okay product. And I just can't see this product continuing to exist, especially in the long term, if you can't even play games with it through PlayStation's cloud services. There are already many cheaper alternatives for PS5 remote play that the PlayStation Portal may be unnecessary.
Written by Wes Cooper
2023-09-22
