PlayStation Portal launched in November 2023 as little more than a glorified second screen for PlayStation 5. Now, a year on from release, it finally has some greater use as a gaming device in its own right, with Sony's announcement that dedicated game streaming is coming to the handheld. The question is, does this mark a tipping point for mainstream adoption of cloud gaming, or is it just a stepping stone to Sony fully reentering the handheld console market?
The PlayStation Portal was always an odd piece of hardware—a DualSense controller chopped in half, with an 8-inch screen wedged in the middle. Unlike Sony's previous dedicated handhelds, the PlayStation Portable (or PSP) and PS Vita, Portal was merely a remote viewer, allowing players to stream games from their PS5 over a home network—useful to ease arguments over who got access to the TV or if you wanted to jump back into God of War without getting out of bed, but not really suited for anything else.
The restrictions didn't end there—although the Portal could technically be used out of the house, it still required your PS5 being active at home, and there being a high-speed Wi-Fi connection wherever you were trying to play from. The Portal doesn't feature any cellular connectivity itself though, and it wasn't until June 2024 that it could connect to public networks (even then, only 2.4-Ghz ones; support for 5-Ghz came a month later)—so, before this, tethering to your phone and hoping your data package held up was your only option. Realistically, Portal was an at-home-only device in most use cases.
Silver Linings
Until now. Possibly as a result of the Portal being a surprise success for Sony, the gadget is being updated to support cloud gaming features, independent of a PS5. The update, rolling out across North America, Europe, and Japan, will allow subscribers to Sony's PlayStation Plus Premium service to access “over 120 PS5 games from the PS Plus Game Catalog,” including the likes of Ghost of Tsushima and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Courtesy of Playstation
