One thing to stay up for: Gamescom 2024 simply wrapped up, and Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson had some fascinating insights and opinions concerning Sony’s future within the handheld gaming market. For these contemplating buying a conveyable console, Henderson stated, “Save your cash a bit of longer.”
His tweet was concerning the many enhancements he noticed at Gamescom that might be coming to portables from producers like Asus, MSI, and Valve. Nonetheless, somebody requested him if there have been any hints that Sony would launch a “devoted” handheld.
Henderson says that the success of the PlayStation Portal has led Sony to begin paying shut consideration to the transportable gaming market. Whereas his opinion on the matter doesn’t suggest that Sony is engaged on a brand new handheld, it does remind us that it’s late for a real PlayStation-branded handheld. The Portal is ok for somebody who already owns a PS5, but it surely’s not a lovely proposition for somebody searching for a standalone transportable sport participant.
Virtually everybody at Gamescom gave fascinating {hardware} discussions about handhelds. My hunch is that you must save your cash a bit of longer in the event you’re planning to purchase one. It looks like much more choices and enhancements are coming quickly (unsure on actual timelines).
– Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) August 25, 2024
The PlayStation Portal was very profitable and they’re paying very shut consideration to the present handheld market 🙂
– Tom Henderson (@_Tom_Henderson_) August 25, 2024
Sony’s relationship with handhelds has been nearly a sidenote within the firm’s historical past. The PlayStation Transportable, higher often known as the PSP, launched in 2004 for $250 and was an ideal albeit costly different to Nintendo’s $100 Sport Boy Advance, which launched a number of years earlier than. Sony spent a lot money and time enhancing the PSP with no fewer than three {hardware} iterations over its 10-year run. It additionally produced two spin-offs of the PSP – the PSP Go and the PSP Avenue – however each suffered from a scarcity of curiosity.
The PlayStation Vita got here alongside in 2011 however didn’t appeal to as a lot consideration from PlayStation followers. Its lackluster gross sales had been a direct results of the $250 machine discovering itself in competitors with a wholly new (to Sony) class of gaming device–the smartphone. Everybody had a telephone, and the video games for them had been less expensive than Sony’s Vita titles. Regardless, the Vita held its personal for eight years, however Sony solely up to date the {hardware} as soon as.
Whereas Sony loved overlapping gross sales of the PSP and Vita between 2011 and 2014, it had no substitute deliberate when it discontinued the Vita in 2019, leaving the corporate with no foothold within the transportable gaming marketplace for 4 years. It wasn’t till mid-spring 2023 that Sony lastly introduced “Undertaking Q,” subsequently launched because the PlayStation Portal final yr.
Not like the PSP and Vita, the Portal was not a standalone sport participant. As an alternative, Sony determined to make it a PlayStation 5 accent. The Portal was primarily a PS5 controller with a secondary show hooked up. In different phrases, the $200 system streams content material from a $500 PlayStation console wirelessly fairly than having a built-in disc or cartridge reader, making the price of entry $700. It was a substantial danger on many ranges.
Having been a long-time Distant Play consumer, I used to be unconvinced that Portal had a shot at promoting. Since its inception in 2006, Distant Play was by no means an ideal different to enjoying video games natively, even with high-speed web. Latency was all the time a problem, and stuttery efficiency additionally hampered the expertise.
Nonetheless, within the lead-up to the Portal’s launch, I observed that Sony had considerably improved Distant Play. Whereas it’s nonetheless sketchy when attempting to play over the web from one other location, it runs easily when the 2 units run on the identical community.
This efficiency enhancement is probably going as a result of Sony quietly added a quasi-ad-hoc mode to the Distant Play app. Whereas the corporate has by no means talked about this function, I not too long ago confirmed it exists when utilizing Distant Play on my MacBook. The web went out, however the sport continued as if nothing was improper. Prior to now, no web meant no Distant Play.
Nonetheless, even with the enhancements to the app, gamers are tethered to their console, which isn’t preferrred for PS5 homeowners and is a deal breaker for everybody else. With a wholly new handheld market simply beginning to gear up for battle, it may be the fitting time for Sony to make a transfer and supply a conveyable different that fits everybody, not simply PS5 homeowners.