I genuinely just don’t understand the value proposition of this handheld. It’s remote play only, with no standalone capabilities, that also only works with the PS5. You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product. Or if you’re committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality, but also have a system that can not only play your PC games, but play like 5 generations of console games from the past
It’s good for a niche market, people who have multiple people living in the house where they have to share a TV, but don’t need to share the PlayStation. In that one niche it makes sense to me
In every other way though, why not a handheld?
Most of my games are on PlayStation. The Steam Deck is clearly the more powerful and capable device, but it is also more expensive and I have no need for any of the extra features. I love the ergonomics of the PS Portal (even though it looks silly), the haptics, the huge screen, and it all comes with a seamless integration into the PlayStation ecosystem. Plus there is no need to take the case off of my phone every time I want to play it unlike the Backbone.
It’s definitely not for everyone but they call it a DadStation for a reason ☺️.
Someone is trying to justify their purchase… check back in a year
You are right. Even though I’ve had an absolute blast using the PS Portal daily ever since i got it I have made the difficult decision to return it because the internet told me that it’s actually not good.
Prehaps an ayn loki zero might be up your valley as its a full fledged budget steamdeck type pc for the same price as a ps portal this might be perfect for you as you could have playstations desktop streaming app installed and some desktop games that’ll run on the meager loki zeros hardware
https://www.ayntec.com/products/loki-zero-preorder
Or of course a full fledged steamdeck
steam deck is single-handedly the best gaming purchase i think i’ve ever made
You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product.
Your phone has an 8” screen and an integrated Dual Sense?
Or if you’re committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality
Your Steam Deck has adaptive triggers and HD haptics? Mine doesn’t.
I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.
Funny how they pretend to ask a question, then downvote you when you give them an answer they don’t like.
It’s also half the price of the SD with a bigger resolution screen (bUt mUh oLEd). I pick it up, press like 2 buttons, and I’m playing in 20 sec. I was happy to pay for the convenience, have been using it a lot since I got it the day after the release.
You can plug your dual sense into both a phone and a steam deck without it costing you any more money.
And the dual-sense then attaches to your phone and increases the size of the screen for free?
They do sell like $5 phone clips for controllers now a days as some mobile games are adding more controller support. But if for you an extra inch or two of screen real estate for the display is worth $200 then that’s your position, it just seems like the market share for that will be pretty damn niche. Like the nvidia shield I don’t expect it to be around for to long so if you do want this you better get one while they make em but know once the ps5 is done support for this will die out as well.
Honestly when it drops to $150 or so, I’m in. Mostly for these same reasons. I use the PS5 on the good TV, but if I wanna be in the room with my partner while they watch a trash reality show, and keep working on my game, this is perfect. At $200, I’ll stick with remote play on Android and a Bluetooth controller, but the Portal seems better for this use case. So when the price is low enough… Sure.
Lol, would love to hear why on earth this is downvoted - guess we’re in full on reddit mode and just downvoting everything that isn’t exactly what I think lol
My phone is nearly a 7in screen, I could Bluetooth connect a Playstation controller and have the exact same functionality, using the hardware I already have. I get that if you don’t have a phone with a bigger screen then this becomes more of a proposition as getting a newer device with a larger screen is gonna be north of $1k USD, so spending $200 to get a portable display and extra controller in a sense is not that bad value wise. I do see where people are seeing it being wasteful as other devices are capable just not at the same level, the only thing I’m wondering is how big is the market of people who wouldn’t rather get a $5 phone holder for their ps5 controller and just use their phone. I see a couple people in this thread here but if most realized they could get a similar experience for $5 for a plastic phone clip would this really look as enticing?
My phone is nearly a 7in screen
Assuming an iPhone Pro Max, with a 6.7” 19,5:9 screen, the 8” 16:9 on the PSPortal has 60% more surface area.
Correct but that screen real-estate isn’t the biggest issue as you generally have the phone and controller fairly close to your eyes, at an optimal viewing distance. Plus, I can stream up to 4k on my device or 1080p at 120fps if I wanted to stream from my pc. Think monitor vs TV gaming. Viewing distance is much more important than screen size on its own.
I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.
I recommend you to do some research, it might not be that good for the only thing this gadget can do.
I don’t understand what market the PlayStation Portal was designed for.
You’re basically paying £200 for a DualSense controller MacGyver’d on a tablet screen that can only remote play PS5 games or stream from PSNow. There are both cheaper and better options which support not just Sony’s ecosystem but also other gaming platforms.
Not to mention that cloud gaming in general just sucks.
It can’t even stream from PSNow it’s just for remote play lol
Cloud gaming doesn’t suck. You can literally play Half Life Alyx on a Quest from a cloud PC and it works great. This all depends on your location and cloud pc of course.
Playing a VR game wirelessly from your own PC is not “cloud gaming”
He’s talking about cloud PCs like Shadow offers: https://shadow.tech/en-NL/shadowpc/offers
The fuck are you talking about? You can do what I’m saying from a remote cloud PC.
Cloud gaming doesn’t suck though. As long as you have good Internet, it’s awesome. I have several thousand hours with cloud gaming and couldn’t have played any of those games otherwise, very rarely have any issues.
Same here og stadia user here although I wouldn’t necessarily call cloud gaming ideal
pc gaming is the way to go nowadays with Cheap games on steam and free games on epic games
sometimes on gogplus playing online is free and nowadays you can build yourself a very cheap rx 480/570miners are trying get rid of there stocki5 4450/i7 3770 pc for very cheaply pair that with a 60gb ssd and above for a boot drive and a 1tb hdd and your gaming
I was under the impression it was a lot more than $200, but that still seems costly for what it does. For $100 more you can get an AYN Odin 2 which does a hell of a lot more stuff for the price.
I mean it’s an 8in 1080p touch screen display at 60hz, the panel is probably around $60, the hardware is probably like a pi zero so $20, and a controller $70. So just on hardware this is probably around $120 after taking into account supply chain discounts. Then, manufacturing costs, and they probably don’t even have that high of a profit margin on the device. Add in a $100 for the actually chip set and yeah you get more features but it’s not that crazy imo. Just a niche market for sure.
For twice the price you get a base model steam deck
They could at least add Vita compatibility and it’ll instantly has hundreds of games available. A shame since Vita itself can play PSP and PS1 titles.
Sony, adding Vita support to this product? Dude, they didn’t even add Wifi 6, I think that was easier and definitely would work to their end goal 😆
Betteridge’s law of headlines says no.
