[RUMOUR] Codenamed Q Lite, the next PlayStation handheld is the next piece of Sony hardware

[Nhomnhom]

If the Deck is worth it for Valve then a portable PS has to be worth it for Sony, it's only a matter of having realistic expectations.

Will the Series S or X even sell 25m each? Would a portable PS capable of playing PS4 games not sell at least somewhat close to that?

It could be significantly less expensive to make than a Steam Deck and would definitely make things more challenging to the next Nintendo portable.

 

[Dabaus]

Imagine the branding and font of PSP 2, cloud streaming and storage, can access all your ps5 and 4 games but runs at like 1080p, probably would need a ps5 to run off though. Retails at 149.99? Think that could be a hit?

Sony also trying to get back into the hand held market, and cloud market could be their alibi for larger acquisitions if the so chose as well. "We only have x amount of the low end hand held market and microsoft already has an unfair advantage in cloud gaming."

 

[Swift_Star]

Probably fake.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

Watch out the rumour originated from Tom Henderson. Tom Henderson is a reputable figure and is known for his impressive track record for PlayStation news.


Important note: He is clearly saying it’s not an April’s fools. Beside that he mentioned in his video, that it’s not about the PS5 Slim or Pro.


A handheld is not out of the reach. Maybe it will pursue an approach like Steam Deck has. Fully compatible to PS4 and PS5 but with lower resolution, frame-rate, level of detail et.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Imagine the branding and font of PSP 2, cloud streaming and storage, can access all your ps5 and 4 games but runs at like 1080p, probably would need a ps5 to run off though. Retails at 149.99? Think that could be a hit?

Sony also trying to get back into the hand held market, and cloud market could be their alibi for larger acquisitions if the so chose as well. "We only have x amount of the low end hand held market and microsoft already has an unfair advantage in cloud gaming."

A streaming only portable would fucking suck and would make no sense. The Switch shows that it's about running games locally at humble settings that preserve battery life.

If it was able to play PS4 games that would mean: Elden Ring, Hogwarts, Resident Evil 4, SF6, Diablo 4, Horizon Forbidden West, RDR2, GT7, Spider-man, God of War Ragnarok, FFVII Remake, Uncharted, Bloodborne, TLoU, Persona 5 and so much more... great value specially for people that buy digital games already or that have PS+.

I would buy it day one and if Sony doesn't do it they are just stupid and deserve to lose market share. The Stem Deck is not going to do well running games above PS4 specs anyway so it's not like the Sony portable will be at a huge disadvantage.

 

[Remij]

Eh..

 

[John Elden Ring]

I will believe when i see it

 

[AshHunter216]

A streaming only portable would fucking suck and would make no sense. The Switch shows that it's about running games locally at humble settings that preserve battery life.

If it was able to play PS4 games that would mean: Elden Ring, Hogwarts, Resident Evil 4, SF6, Diablo 4, Horizon Forbidden West, RDR2, GT7, Spider-man, God of War Ragnarok, FFVII Remake, Uncharted, Bloodborne, TLoU, Persona 5 and so much more... great value specially for people that buy digital games already or that have PS+.

I would buy it day one and if Sony doesn't do it they are just stupid and deserve to lose market share. The Stem Deck is not going to do well running games above PS4 specs anyway so it's not like the Sony portable will be at a huge disadvantage.

On the slim chance that this is true, they'll need a lot more studios if they want to support 3 platforms. (PS5, PSVR2 and whatever this would be)

 

[Nhomnhom]

On the slim chance that this is true, they'll need a lot more studios if they want to support 3 platforms. (PS5, PSVR2 and whatever this would be)

Why would they need to support a device that plays all PS4 games? PS4 games are still being released that is the entire point of why now is the time to do something like this. In the future devs making games for the Switch successor would have the option to support this device natively or the PS4 as well, there would be no need for Sony to make exclusive games for it.

PS4 games even supports HDR already, it would not be far behind the Deck or Switch successor in any meaningful way and would be positioned to have a price advantage.

 

[AshHunter216]

Why would they need to support a device that plays all PS4 games? PS4 games are still being released that is the entire point of why now is the time to do something like this. In the future devs making games for the Switch successor would have the option to support this device natively or the PS4 as well, there would be no need for Sony to make exclusive games for it.

At this point its all speculation as to what it will play. If it isn't just a port machine, they'll need more content for it and even if its just a port machine, you would need more port studios than just Nixxes to keep from pulling time and resources away from studios working on PS5 games.

 

[Nhomnhom]

At this point its all speculation as to what it will play. If it isn't just a port machine, they'll need more content for it and even if its just a port machine, you would need more port studios than just Nixxes to keep from pulling time and resources away from studios working on PS5 games.

To port what? This shouldn't be able to run PS5 games natively, that would just get in the way of the PS5. How are all PS4 games not enougth content?

If Sony actually makes another Vita like console that requires it's own versions of games they are beyond stupid and failed to learn from past mistakes.

Valve didn't have to make exclusives for the Deck and people seem to have no trouble understanding that not every game is going to work on it.

 

[AshHunter216]

To port what? This shouldn't be able to run PS5 games natively, that would just get in the way of the PS5. How are all PS4 games not enougth content?

If Sony actually makes another Vita like console that require it's own versions of games they are beyond stupid and failed to learn from past mistakes.

Im tallking about porting PS4 games to whatever this theoretical handheld is as I doubt that it would be identical hardware to a PS4. Either way splitting attention between multiple platforms is a bad idea imo and leads to less effort being put into all of them. The only reason it sorta worked with the PSP is because of how many third party devs rallied behind Sony by default back then.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Im yslking about porting PS4 games to whatever this theoretical handheld is as I doubt that it would be identical hardware to a PS4. Either way splitting attention between multiple platforms is a bad idea imo and leads to less effort being put into all of them. The only reason it sorta worked with the PSP is because of how many third party devs rallied behind Sony by default back then.

PS5 isn't identical hardware yet runs every PS4 game just fine. They already solved this problem long ago.

The Steam Deck hardware is already far superior to what Sony would need to acomplish this.

Hilarious that they can afford to port all their games to PC for a few extra sales but can't afford the R&D cost for something that would at least sell better than the PS Vita and provide PlayStation players with a way to access their entire PS4 library on the go.

They are digging their own grave by not doing something like this and it shows a complete lack of vision for the future.

 

[AshHunter216]

PS5 isn't identical hardware yet runs every PS4 game just fine. They already solved the problem.

The Steam Deck hardware is already far superior to what Sony would need.

What you're proposing is a Sony-branded steamdeck clone. The games would still need optimization to run properly on it and it wouldn't be plug and play with zero effort on Sony's part.

 

[Nhomnhom]

What you're proposing is a Sony-branded steamdeck clone. The games would still need optimization to run properly on it and it's not plug and play with zero effort on Sony's part.

No. What I'm proposing is a portable that is backwards compatible with the PS4 with no need of porting any game. The Steam Deck required far more effort from Valve due to them having to solve the challenge of gaming on Linux and still having to provide support and fixes to this day.

PS4 games are not emulated on the PS5, the backwards compatibility is a hardware solution.

If Valve is just that much more competent than Sony then I rest my case and Sony deserves to lose space as a platform holder and hopefully will just be forced to just become a third-party publisher soon since they seem so comfortable in that role on PC.

 

[AshHunter216]

No. What I'm proposing is a portable that is backwards compatible with the PS4 with no need of porting any game. The Steam Deck required far more effort from Valve due to them having to solve the challenge of gaming on Linux and still having to provide support and fixes to this day.

PS4 games are not emulated on the PS5, the backwards compatibility is a hardware solution.

If Valve is just that much more competent than Sony then I rest my case and Sony deserves to lose space as a platform holder and hopefully just be forced to just become a third-party publisher soon since they seem so comfortable in that role on PC.

Lmao, you think they would need to go third party over their theoretical handling of an unnecessary rumored handheld?
Properly supporting a handheld is not as simple as you think it is, but it hardly matters until we get an official announcement anyway.

 

[Nhomnhom]

Lmao, you think they would need to go third party over their theoretical handling of an unnecessary rumored handheld?
Properly supporting a handheld is not as simple as you think it is, but it hardly matters until we get an official announcement anyway.

If they are as incapable as you suggest then it's inevitable.

To me it just seems like you can't understand the concept of backwards compatibility and how that would remove the need of any first party support.

 

[AshHunter216]

If they are as incapable as you suggest then it's inevitable.

Lmao, if that's what your understanding of my post was, sure.

 

[Angie]

I don't believe this for a second.
Sony is not going to put their teams to support 3 different hardware.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

People keep thinking "new Sony handheld" means a Vita 2 aka something with its own dedicated library of games. That's not what this is. If Sony are making a handheld this is what I think they'd do:

1: RDNA 2 or 3 GPU with at least base PS4 TF performance

2: 6nm process

3: 8 GB HBM2 for " gaming" model (HAS to provide PS4 memory bandwidth with small physical footprint and low power usage; HBM2 is only option for this).

4: 12 GB (8 GB HBM2, 4 GB LPDDR5) for "phone" model.

5: 512 GB embedded Flash storage for "gaming" model; 1 TB for "phone" model. Both can use additional external storage.

The main purpose of this device would be to serve as a 100% native portable PS4. Every single PS4 game, runs with no issue and gains portability as a result. However, since it shares GPU & CPU architecture with PS5, it can essentially just straight up leverage PS5 APIs and dev environment.

That opens up many possibilities for smaller devs and games that may still want to target the PS4 install base, but have the luxury of their software being easily available to PS5 owners and PS4 owners, in addition to owners of the handheld. This would be especially appealing to Japanese and indie devs who want a mainstream portable with more power than a Switch (and possibly Switch 2) to target, with common API tools and the brand strength of PlayStation, as well as knowing their games can be played on this handheld, PS4 & PS5 consoles.

There should be two versions, both with the same baseline specs (CPU, GPU, memory bandwidth, storage type), but otherwise customized to the "lower" end dedicated portable gaming market, and the other targeted at the "higher" end smartphone market.

This would affect certain design choices. For example, the "phone" model would need to dual-boot into PS OS and Android; the "gaming" model would only need PS OS. The "gaming" model would not need a high-quality 16 megapixel front and rear camera setup, whereas the "phone" model definitely needs that sort of thing. The "phone" model would need SIM card support, whereas the "gaming model does not.

In the same way, the " gaming" model needs expected physical button and trigger inputs by default built into its shell, probably as a modular fit-to-form design. The " phone" model doesn't need this by default; instead one could just purchase that type of controller component separately.

I think the only real complication in this could be in the event where a company like Sony wants to make a smaller mobile game say based on a classic PS IP, then make that game available on the PS devices, because they'd need to make two versions. Well, maybe. I think they could in fact just need to make one but build two different executables, and optimize them.