PlayStation Portal Sales Continue to Prove Naysayers Wrong

[mibu no ookami]

Of course it's true, I work as gamedev since almost 20 years ago and know many people who are working or worked in many places ranging from top AAA to small indies (an a few examples, the ones running a studio that back then only made handheld games for Sony and whose feedback contributed to how Vita was, or the one running another that only made games for Nintendo portables until needed to go multi the previous generation), so I know the costs and the reasons of why many of them don't support Nintendo (or moved to multi), portables or even in the case of Sony why they did stop supporting portables.


Since decades ago by definition PC (unlike console) games have been scalable, but modern PC handhelds are the first ones to have horsepower enough to be capable of featuring basically all current day big ass AAA games. And more importantly, without needing any porting job.

Any home or portable console with a dedicated OS, even if like PS or Xbox they essentially feature PC hardware, only works with its own dedicated games and ports. Even if has similar hardware to PS4 or PS5 but with really minor changes. Meaning, resources or money. Not in the case of a PC handheld, because the PC ones would just work there.


I'm a gamedev who worked in over 40 published games, who is now working on a Game Boy game, a VR game, a PC+console+mobile+arcade game, a console+PC+arcade game plus mentoring multiple external indie games. You're the one who has no idea what you're talking about, not me.

Yes, there's something cheaper: what I said, to don't need to port it for a handheld because those handhelds basically have hardware equivalent to current popular PC destktop hardware and passes the typical minimum PC specs of the games. Meaning, a PC game that runs decently enough in low/mid tier PC desktop hardware specs just works in these portables.

The only thing that the game needs is to support gamepad controls and to have a minimum text font size big enough to be readable in those screens. No porting or extra optimization required.

Nowadays almost all companies (including MS and Sony, being Nintendo one of the few exceptions) already port their games to PC because the desktop PC is a big enough market they need, and the PC handhelds are a submarket inside PC. They don't port a game to PC to have a handheld version: their business is PC as a whole, mostly desktop. To get the PC handheld version is something that is essentially free when having a decently scalable PC game.


The reason of why Sony doesn't leave their consoles open is because they want a revenue cut from all games running there, so they don't allow other stores there. That (with a small extra help from PC and mobile via other stores) they have enough revenue and profit. But they will want to continue growing, so at some point they'll want to have their only PC and mobile PSN stores.

And once they open their PSN stores for PC an mobile, they'll want people from these platforms, including those in the different PC handhelds, to buy their games there.

I assume initially will want to release their PC handheld only featuring their own store/games, but I think that whenever their release their portable (maybe 4-5 years from now, around a year after PS6 release as PS Player next gen successor) all the other PC handheld competitors will feature multiple stores and OS, so to be fully featured Sony will end -maybe after launch- allowing to install other OS.


PC is a bigger market in terms of userbase and revenue than PS, so it has more value.

Specifically for Sony, PS is an already huge market for them and doesn't need extra help, meanwhile their PC business, despite being very profitable and to keep growing very fast, has way more room and potential to grow.

If a first generation of that device gives them let's say 10-20M new users that would mean a bigger % increase for their PC business -just because it's smaller- than to their console business.

On top of that, in a few years pretty likely PS will have the home console market basically just for themselves, with almost no competition, with Nintendo focused mostly on handhelds and MS full multiplatform leaving their console hardware mostly to 3rd parties. But instead in PC they'll have a lot of competition of many stores, for 3rd parties mainly Steam.

So it would be smarter to use that potential handheld to support more directly their growing PC business because it would need it more than their console business, which already mostly reached its full potential.


Sony and the 3rd parties know that all non-Nintendo portable consoles, with PSP as exception, failed to generate a big enough market to make games and ports profitable for them. In case of Nintendo devices, their 3rd party sales since the N64 have been too small for many publishers to fully support them with their AAA games.

PC handhelds don't have these issues of needing to generate a big enough catalog and userbase to make their games or ports profitable, because their games and stores aren't limited to them: they are normal PC games, and these publishers and storefront ownsers already are already happy with their desktop PC business, handheld PCs are just an extra for them.

Having the games catalog and profitability issue sorted indirectly with the desktop PC market, PC handhelds manufacturers only need to focus on keeping hardware side sustainable and reasonable: not too expensive to make it appealing to the biggest amount possible of players, not too cheap to avoid losing a lot of money per unit.

In the players side, being PC means they have a huge catalog: they don't have the issue of portable consoles not featuring enough games, including most of the most popular ones like GTA, FIFA, AC, CoD and so on: they'll be there.


Portable PS4 and PS5 hardware are they fiction here: they don't exist, would be too expensive and would require dedicated games/ports like the Vita or Switch because the hardware can't be 100% the same.

PC handhelds aren't a fiction, they already exist and feature most PS4 and PS5 games. By the time Sony would release their next portable device (maybe 2027-2030, around PS6 launch or a year later or two?) they already will have ported to PC all their PS4 and PS5 games -plus some PS3 ones- that they consider with potential to continue selling decently in modern times.

Do you know how you can tell that your argument is ridiculous and without merit?

Make the exact same argument for Sony making a PC based console and see if your argument holds up.

 

[Yurinka]

Do you know how you can tell that your argument is ridiculous and without merit?

You not liking an argument doesn't mean it's ridiculous. It just means you don't like it.

In this case, because you hate Sony doing something with PC, and because you don't want to accept the fact that being pragmatic is a cheaper, more profitable and less risky solution than doing a traditional portable console, specially after the Vita failure.

Make the exact same argument for Sony making a PC based console and see if your argument holds up.

They already did it with PS4 and PS5.

The difference is that as of now their home consoles competition doesn't allow other stores / OS, and Sony has a larger catalog than their competition, they cover more niches. So their customers are happy with that PS4/PS5 catalog.

In portables instead PC handhelds have a giant catalog thanks to having multiple storefronts, cloud gaming services and emulation. So by comparision, way better than the Switch one and the one of a potential new Sony portable console, which would start with a catalog of zero games.

That would mean than in the long term, once the PC handhelds mature and prices go down enough to make their price appealing for a mainstream market, people would prefer them due to their catalog vs portable consoles.

The solution? To make Sony's handheld a PC one and use the same PC PSN catalog and store. Including in the box only Sony's (custom PC Linux, like in PS4/PS5) OS and storefront but allowing people to install another OS (at their own risk, not covered by warranty).

Some of these PC handhelds already can be connected to the tv, but as they popularize they'll also release hybrid versions or directly home console shaped versions. In fact, very likely we'll see this in Xbox's next generation: pretty likely they'll have both home console and portable console version, running and adapted Windows as OS and allowing/featuring other stores (including the Sony/Epic/Valve/etc. ones).

Unlike in portables, in home consoles Sony is too dominant, so I don't think they'll open their home console market to install there other OS. At least not until somebody else gets too successful with home console/hybrid PCs to the point that starts to eat (home console) PS market share in a meaningful amount. Something I think won't happen.

 

[mibu no ookami]

You not liking an argument doesn't mean it's ridiculous. It just means you don't like it.

In this case, because you hate Sony doing something with PC, and because you don't want to accept the fact that being pragmatic is a cheaper, more profitable and less risky solution than doing a traditional portable console, specially after the Vita failure.


They already did it with PS4 and PS5.

The difference is that as of now their home consoles competition doesn't allow other stores / OS, and Sony has a larger catalog than their competition, they cover more niches. So their customers are happy with that PS4/PS5 catalog.

In portables instead PC handhelds have a giant catalog thanks to having multiple storefronts, cloud gaming services and emulation. So by comparision, way better than the Switch one and the one of a potential new Sony portable console, which would start with a catalog of zero games.

That would mean than in the long term, once the PC handhelds mature and prices go down enough to make their price appealing for a mainstream market, people would prefer them due to their catalog vs portable consoles.

The solution? To make Sony's handheld a PC one and use the same PC PSN catalog and store. Including in the box only Sony's (custom PC Linux, like in PS4/PS5) OS and storefront but allowing people to install another OS (at their own risk, not covered by warranty).

Some of these PC handhelds already can be connected to the tv, but as they popularize they'll also release hybrid versions or directly home console shaped versions. In fact, very likely we'll see this in Xbox's next generation: pretty likely they'll have both home console and portable console version, running and adapted Windows as OS and allowing/featuring other stores (including the Sony/Epic/Valve/etc. ones).

Unlike in portables, in home consoles Sony is too dominant, so I don't think they'll open their home console market to install there other OS. At least not until somebody else gets too successful with home console/hybrid PCs to the point that starts to eat (home console) PS market share in a meaningful amount. Something I think won't happen.

So I ask you to make the same argument for consoles, and instead you try a filibuster with your original argument about handhelds?

That's on brand for you.

 

[Kokoloko]

What are you guys discussing lol?

Just give me PSP3 with BC, whoever supports this gets my supportive vote

 

[Yurinka]

So I ask you to make the same argument for consoles, and instead you try a filibuster with your original argument about handhelds?

That's on brand for you.

I shouldn't have wasted my time with you politely writing it, just to get the argument ignored and insulted by a troll. I suggest you to learn to read, think and behave properly.

Goodbye and good luck with your fantasy.

 

[mibu no ookami]

What are you guys discussing lol?

Just give me PSP3 with BC, whoever supports this gets my supportive vote

There is this contingent of people who have convinced themselves that when Sony makes a handheld, rather than make a proprietary handheld that they would for some reason my a PC handheld.

It's one of the most illogical arguments I've seen since thicc said PSVR2 PC support would be achieved via streaming.

I asked him to make the argument for why Sony wouldn't do the same with the PS6 and he couldn't, because it just doesn't make sense.

 

[64bitmodels]

The game still needs to be ported to PC first and then still needs to be scaled down to work on specific hardware.

It covers more bases to port and scale down for pc than it would to port and scale down for a handheld console

A port to a handheld console is a port to a handheld console.

A port to PC is a port to desktops, laptops, and handheld pcs.

Ultimately Sony would need to go thru the effort of porting to both pc and a handheld console if they took the psp3 approach as opposed to cloning the steam deck. No matter how small the cost is there's still an additional cost

 

[64bitmodels]

Not to mention that a portable handheld would ultimately be pointless because Sony is on the PC port train and are not going to stop. Any games going to said handheld would likely arrive on pc as well so it's a question between consumers on if the big Steam Deck 2 OLED or Sony PSP3 is a better choice... Sony is likely not winning here

 

[Vertigo]

At the rate in which mobile tech improves… just waiting till more mobile products can run steam and pc ports is forward compatible enough to not bother with another handheld.

I don’t want to see another dedicated platform and split resources supporting drastically different system architectures. All dev teams should be focused on a primary platform and port from there.

I’ve never seen anyone trash Portal sales. It’s tracked well as an ACCESORY since it launched.

vr2 is a different story… huge flop

 

[Yurinka]

It covers more bases to port and scale down for pc than it would to port and scale down for a handheld console

A port to a handheld console is a port to a handheld console.

A port to PC is a port to desktops, laptops, and handheld pcs.

Ultimately Sony would need to go thru the effort of porting to both pc and a handheld console if they took the psp3 approach as opposed to cloning the steam deck. No matter how small the cost is there's still an additional cost

At the rate in which mobile tech improves… just waiting till more mobile products can run steam and pc ports is forward compatible enough to not bother with another handheld.

I don’t want to see another dedicated platform and split resources supporting drastically different system architectures. All dev teams should be focused on a primary platform and port from there.

The 3rd party games sales in portable consoles are pretty limited compared to home consoles or PC. Historically only Nintendo and a few other games had huge game sales on portables. But in the GB/GBA days to make a game for portables was way cheaper than for home consoles.

Nowadays costs of developing for home or portable consoles are essentially same unless you're talking about a big AAA that doesn't fit in a portable, but the difference of 3rd party sales between portables and handhelds are still there. There's also the game prices almost not increased (specially when counting inflation), specially when compared to the gamedev costs increase, both for portable consoles, home consoles and PC.

PC, including desktop, laptop and now PC handhelds has been way a more lucrative market for the publishers than portable consoles and require less costs, so most big publishers and indies supported it way more than portable consoles.

So in general publishers prefer the PC handheld approach because they already have the PC version mostly for desktop and laptop, and don't need to split resources making a dedicated port/version for a handheld as would be the case of a traditional portable console.

In case of Sony, a PC handheld (even if closed to other OS/storefronts and limited to their potential future PC PSN) would reduce the costs not only of OS/drivers/ports of their own games, but also the need of splitting their dev resources to make dedicated games for the handheld, and also the cost of dedicated deals with 3rd parties to get paid 3rd party ports/games/exclusives/etc: in the 3rd party deals Sony would be on a better negotiation position if they sign for the whole PC PSN including desktop+laptop+handheld instead of just handheld or just desktop+laptop separatedly.

Regarding the tech, since many years ago the tech behind PCs, laptops, home consoles, portable consoles, tablets and smartphones keeps converging and getting more and more similar and it is expected to continue in this way. So we'll see more storefronts and games of these platforms appearing in the other ones and viceversa. We'll also see these storefronts/ecosystems until recently focused to a since device family to evolve into multiplatform storefronts.

Not only in hardware, but also in software: many operative OS/store ecosystems, game engines, libraries etc. are becoming more and more hardware agnostic and will continue evolving in this way because companies need to grow so at certain point they need to open to new markets and platforms.

I’ve never seen anyone trash Portal sales. It’s tracked well as an ACCESORY since it launched.

Yes, PS Portal should be seen just as a DualSense with a screen in the middle. A PS5 accesory, not as a standalone handheld.

 

[mibu no ookami]

It covers more bases to port and scale down for pc than it would to port and scale down for a handheld console

A port to a handheld console is a port to a handheld console.

A port to PC is a port to desktops, laptops, and handheld pcs.

Ultimately Sony would need to go thru the effort of porting to both pc and a handheld console if they took the psp3 approach as opposed to cloning the steam deck. No matter how small the cost is there's still an additional cost

I think this is inherently the issue is that people think it would be a port and that Sony's handheld won't share architecture and programming with the consoles, which it absolutely will as reported by MLID.

Do you think sony and other companies "port" games to PS5 Pro? No. It's the same build and compiler, they're just enhancing the game for that system.

Similarly, they can scale down for a PS Handheld running similar architecture.

Not to mention that a portable handheld would ultimately be pointless because Sony is on the PC port train and are not going to stop. Any games going to said handheld would likely arrive on pc as well so it's a question between consumers on if the big Steam Deck 2 OLED or Sony PSP3 is a better choice... Sony is likely not winning here

There is no way Sony is going to market a handheld that gets games significantly later than their console.

How many units do you think the Steam Deck has sold. I can tell you it is not a retail competitor to anything Sony or Nintendo are doing. And has sold significantly fewer units than the Vita. So this idea that Sony can't compete with Valve is hilarious.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Not to mention that a portable handheld would ultimately be pointless because Sony is on the PC port train and are not going to stop. Any games going to said handheld would likely arrive on pc as well so it's a question between consumers on if the big Steam Deck 2 OLED or Sony PSP3 is a better choice... Sony is likely not winning here

Great way to ensure people will build their library on PC instead.

This are the things that would need to happen for any of this to make sense for me:
- Sony own handheld running Linux (pretty much their own SteamOS).
- Sony storefront with crossbuy and retro games
- No more PS+ essentials tier (no more charging for online or cloud saves)

Something like this would make me believe Sony has some sort of long term plan and maybe is just maneuvering around the inevitable ruling that consoles will need to open up for competing stores.

The way they are handling things just leads me to believe they are desperate to cash-in on anything.

 

[Kokoloko]

This are the things that would need to happen for any of this to make sense for me:
- Sony own handheld running Linux (pretty much their own SteamOS).
- Sony storefront with crossbuy and retro games
- No more PS+ essentials tier (no more charging for online or cloud saves)

Yeah Id buy one if its the first 2 points only lol.
They could copy and paste ps5 os as far as i care, that and crossbuy/bc with my psn account games and I'm in

 

[64bitmodels]

I think this is inherently the issue is that people think it would be a port and that Sony's handheld won't share architecture and programming with the consoles, which it absolutely will as reported by MLID.

Do you think sony and other companies "port" games to PS5 Pro? No. It's the same build and compiler, they're just enhancing the game for that system.

How are you supposed to fit a PS5's hardware into a handheld? Even the PSP back when Moore's Law was still a thing in technology, could only match the power of a Dreamcast in 2005, 5 years after the PS2 release. What chance do we stand now? More over think of the logistics of that- all the previous games that were only developed with one SKU in mind would now need to be scaled down to run on the new handheld- not a port, but still work needing to be done nonetheless

the reason the Steam Deck runs so many games on PC is because PC games were already optimized to run on lower end systems running 1050s, GTX 960s, RX 580s, and others, and the Deck is similar in power to those GPUs so it gets away with it. But the PS5 is one configuration with games optimized for one system.

Finally, I find this super hypocritical. Weren't we all reminded of the flaws of the Series S strategy with the whole Baldur's Gate 3 panic holding up the game on Xbox for well over 2-3 months? Why would you all of a sudden want to bring that back to Playstation? Keep in mind that MS is a far richer company than Sony and they are already struggling making these 2 skus work as it is. Putting 3 onto Sony is straight up boneheaded

There is no way Sony is going to market a handheld that gets games significantly later than their console.

How many units do you think the Steam Deck has sold. I can tell you it is not a retail competitor to anything Sony or Nintendo are doing. And has sold significantly fewer units than the Vita. So this idea that Sony can't compete with Valve is hilarious.

But Sony's still here porting their games to PC and doing day and date with some titles. PC as a platform is already heavily imbued in their marketing strategy- every new showcase from them is getting ready to show off yet another PC port. And they take good care to make sure their games work well on Deck- other companies will at best force mandatory log ins with launchers that don't work well with the Deck's input methods, and at worst saddle their games with shitty DRM and prevent Deck usage. Maybe they won't market it but Valve will most certainly take advantage of the other games appearing on their own platform in their own marketing- remember the whole Yuzu scare in one of the Deck trailers?

As for the second part, that's simply up to a manner of Valve not giving enough of a fuck to run larger advertising campaigns and stock their systems in stores. You need to order through Steam (meaning a steam account) as opposed to going into some place like Target and buying retail- of course Sony will have the retail advantage. Personally I doubt that there's enough interest in the PSP brand to survive a modern gaming industry when even Nintendo has given up on dedicated handhelds and merged both segments into one.

Plus, you don't think that this isn't a far cheaper operation for Valve? think about it- they make the hardware (which is getting exponentially cheaper as the years go by thanks to the newer portable ryzens), they sell it, and then that's that. All the services they need to uphold for the console to work are already in Steam. All of the library is already on steam and you don't need to do publishing. Valve's own first party games make such a ridiculous amount of money they can coast off of those sales alone, and all third party comes to the Deck by proxy of being on Steam. Everything's integrated and the only real cost on Valve is the manufacturing and sales of the hardware

Going the portable console route is much more inconvenient and expensive, you need physical media, accessories, get a library of games working on the platform, etc. Outside of friends, you need to make 2 whole ass different ecosystems

 

[mibu no ookami]

How are you supposed to fit a PS5's hardware into a handheld? Even the PSP back when Moore's Law was still a thing in technology, could only match the power of a Dreamcast in 2005, 5 years after the PS2 release. What chance do we stand now? More over think of the logistics of that- all the previous games that were only developed with one SKU in mind would now need to be scaled down to run on the new handheld- not a port, but still work needing to be done nonetheless

the reason the Steam Deck runs so many games on PC is because PC games were already optimized to run on lower end systems running 1050s, GTX 960s, RX 580s, and others, and the Deck is similar in power to those GPUs so it gets away with it. But the PS5 is one configuration with games optimized for one system.

Finally, I find this super hypocritical. Weren't we all reminded of the flaws of the Series S strategy with the whole Baldur's Gate 3 panic holding up the game on Xbox for well over 2-3 months? Why would you all of a sudden want to bring that back to Playstation? Keep in mind that MS is a far richer company than Sony and they are already struggling making these 2 skus work as it is. Putting 3 onto Sony is straight up boneheaded


But Sony's still here porting their games to PC and doing day and date with some titles. PC as a platform is already heavily imbued in their marketing strategy- every new showcase from them is getting ready to show off yet another PC port. And they take good care to make sure their games work well on Deck- other companies will at best force mandatory log ins with launchers that don't work well with the Deck's input methods, and at worst saddle their games with shitty DRM and prevent Deck usage. Maybe they won't market it but Valve will most certainly take advantage of the other games appearing on their own platform in their own marketing- remember the whole Yuzu scare in one of the Deck trailers?

As for the second part, that's simply up to a manner of Valve not giving enough of a fuck to run larger advertising campaigns and stock their systems in stores. You need to order through Steam (meaning a steam account) as opposed to going into some place like Target and buying retail- of course Sony will have the retail advantage. Personally I doubt that there's enough interest in the PSP brand to survive a modern gaming industry when even Nintendo has given up on dedicated handhelds and merged both segments into one.

Plus, you don't think that this isn't a far cheaper operation for Valve? think about it- they make the hardware (which is getting exponentially cheaper as the years go by thanks to the newer portable ryzens), they sell it, and then that's that. All the services they need to uphold for the console to work are already in Steam. All of the library is already on steam and you don't need to do publishing. Valve's own first party games make such a ridiculous amount of money they can coast off of those sales alone, and all third party comes to the Deck by proxy of being on Steam. Everything's integrated and the only real cost on Valve is the manufacturing and sales of the hardware

Going the portable console route is much more inconvenient and expensive, you need physical media, accessories, get a library of games working on the platform, etc. Outside of friends, you need to make 2 whole ass different ecosystems

There is for some reason this belief that it's about "fitting" a PS5 into a handheld form... it doesn't work like that. The components that go into a handheld are smaller by nature. That's where you need to technically get a chipset powerful enough to run games at a lower resolution with adequate cooling and battery life. You don't need a machine powerful enough to run games at 4K resolution. In fact with PSSR you could have the games run below 720p and upscale to 720p or 1080p. It's the exact same type of hardware you're going to need in creating a PC handheld in the first place.

If you watched the video MLID put out, the handheld would play PS4 games natively, and run PS5 games that have been patched to run at lower resolutions/framerates.

The difference between having a step down machine that is a handheld is that it offers different functionality than a simple step down console and there is no marketing promise that all games will function on the device without being patched. So there is no mandate on developers to have to support it in order to release a PS5 game.

Having physical media allow you to sell in retail, which is kind of a big deal...

I'll bet my accounts against yours that sony's handheld isn't a PC handheld any day.

 

[anonpuffs]

If @mibu no ookami had his way they'd still be putting out games for PS4 when the PS6 comes out

No thanks

 

[mibu no ookami]

If @mibu no ookami had his way they'd still be putting out games for PS4 when the PS6 comes out

No thanks

Not sure where you got that from. I don't think that at all.

That being said, I do think that we're going to see Sony shift to a PlayStation as a Platform approach to ensure higher userbase consistently throughout the changing of generations.

For Sony and for publishers it makes sense to always be able to sell to 80+ million users at any given time on PlayStation. We're getting close to the time in which making PS4 games doesn't make much sense even for annual titles like CoD and EA FC.

All the games in Sony's Phase 2 will probably be current gen exclusive. We've already seen that with Helldivers, Rise of the Ronin, Stellar Blade, Concord, Astrobot, and Lego Horizon which is even hitting Switch but not PS4.

PS4 is dead and dying. PS5 will have a longer ramp though, especially because of the move to SSD.

 

[64bitmodels]

Having physical media allow you to sell in retail, which is kind of a big deal...

Yeah. Oculus Quest 2 has no physical media and it's outsold the Steam Deck pretty handily. What's up with that?

Series S also outsold the Series X despite no physical media.

Also, stores are LITERALLY CUTTING OUT PHYSICAL MEDIA. Do you think they honestly give a shit anymore these days? We get articles every couple months about how stores are shutting down their Blu-Ray catalogues.

The Steam Deck sold around 3-4 million units on only Valve's platform with no other digital stores or retail presence outside of Japan, little advertising and presence, not to mention not even shipping to certain countries like New Zealand and Australia. For their first time in the handheld market, only 2 years on the market as opposed to the Vita's 8. That much interest for a console only locked to one store is something that can't be downplayed.

What do you think will happen if Valve opens shipments to Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and others on their next device?

You don't need a machine powerful enough to run games at 4K resolution. In fact with PSSR you could have the games run below 720p and upscale to 720p or 1080p. It's the exact same type of hardware you're going to need in creating a PC handheld in the first place.

It is not just resolution you need to downscale far more than that.
What about raytracing modes or textures? Global Illumination solutions? And again, this applies for every PS5 game right? Every publisher's gonna need to downscale their efforts to run on this handheld, which means 3 SKUs. More work on the devs.

Again Series S- Xbox said the exact same shit with the Series S back in 2020, "just downscale the resolution bro!" It needed more cuts on the graphical side of things- Raytracing, textures, upscaling, all that jazz... just to reach 900p. While using 75 watts. This is not something easy. This is something that requires work. This is something that we will not have the hardware to do for years now. You can't just throw the resolution down and expect these games to run well.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Yeah. Oculus Quest 2 has no physical media and it's outsold the Steam Deck pretty handily. What's up with that?

They're probably sold at a much higher margin and retail probably gets a cut. There's also more peripherals for Quest.

Series S also outsold the Series X despite no physical media.

The Series S still has peripherals that stores can sell, because it shares the same peripherals as the Series X. Stores generally don't carry as many Series S as they do Series X though.

Also, stores are LITERALLY CUTTING OUT PHYSICAL MEDIA. Do you think they honestly give a shit anymore these days? We get articles every couple months about how stores are shutting down their Blu-Ray catalogues.

You're conflating tv/movies with games. I haven't seen stores reducing gaming physical media at all (except for maybe Xbox).

The Steam Deck sold around 3-4 million units on only Valve's platform with no other digital stores or retail presence outside of Japan, little advertising and presence, not to mention not even shipping to certain countries like New Zealand and Australia. For their first time in the handheld market, only 2 years on the market as opposed to the Vita's 8. That much interest for a console only locked to one store is something that can't be downplayed.

Selling half of what the Vita sold a product that was considered a failure... and you think that makes it a model for Sony going forward? Think about that.

What do you think will happen if Valve opens shipments to Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and others on their next device?

Ask yourself why they haven't opened it up to other retailers so far. It's because these retailers will then take a cut of the revenue.

It is not just resolution you need to downscale far more than that.
What about raytracing modes or textures? Global Illumination solutions? And again, this applies for every PS5 game right? Every publisher's gonna need to downscale their efforts to run on this handheld, which means 3 SKUs. More work on the devs.

Again Series S- Xbox said the exact same shit with the Series S back in 2020, "just downscale the resolution bro!" It needed more cuts on the graphical side of things- Raytracing, textures, upscaling, all that jazz... just to reach 900p. While using 75 watts. This is not something easy. This is something that requires work. This is something that we will not have the hardware to do for years now. You can't just throw the resolution down and expect these games to run well.

You should realize that's where you can make concessions on a handheld unit. Things like raytracing aren't nearly as important. Textures are easily scalable.

Marginally more work for significantly increased sales. And guess what they'd STILL have to do that if it was scaling of a PC port.

The Series S largely can just downscale resolution, the biggest problem with some Series S ports is the memory.

The Steam Deck is evidence that you're wrong...

 

[Gamerguy84]

Had Vita and it could of been great with a proper r2, l2.

Love portal, it works so good with a PS5 that is plugged into your network. I forget, or it just doesn't matter, that I'm streaming and not playing local.

Favorite thing though is every game I have on PS5 automatically works. There is no asking when a portal version be available. Oh and it was $199.