Sony is reportedly developing a new handheld console

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With the Nintendo Switch being such a runaway success, and having a successor console on the way, it looks like an old rival might be throwing their hat back into the ring. An insider report from Bloomberg states that Sony is looking to contend in the portable gaming market, and thus, are in the early stages of creating a new handheld device. Supposedly, the concept builds upon the PlayStation Portal, but would, "function as a standalone device like Valve Corp.’s Steam Deck". Bloomberg notes that the release of such a PlayStation-branded handheld would be "years away", or could never be fully realized.

The product is aimed at expanding Sony’s reach and contending with Nintendo Co. for the portable gaming market, according to people familiar with its development. It would also counter any potential mobile hardware from Xbox maker Microsoft Corp., which is working on prototypes in the category as well. Sony’s portable device is likely years away from launch and the company could still decide against bringing it to market, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private plans.

:arrow: Source
 
2010: Sony released their own set of Wiimotes almost four years later. Right after that the Kinect released as the first console accessory with a depth sensor (yes, which can be seen as a greatly improved EyeToy, I guess).

2013: Sony catches up with the Kinect with their own PS4 camera, that now also has depth perception.

2016: Sony releases a makeshift VR headset making use of their former two achievements only to be 6 months behind the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive.

2023: Sony copies the Valve Index Controllers released almost four years prior for their PSVR2 headset.

What I want to say is that Sony has quite a track record of being late to the party. Now they are about to make the same mistake by trying to compete with the Switch 2 without exclusives and the Steam Deck (as well as the whole PC handheld market) without versatility. They could make it play PS5 games on an Xbox Series S level, but then I could imagine them racking up the price to that of a PS5 Pro. And as the Vita taught us, you can bet that crossbuy might be optional on this one, because why give potential customers any comfort if you can try to make them pay twice.
 
Last edited by Axido,
With the success of steam deck, Sony is having delusions of grandeur. They should have always kept one foot in the door but bailed on handheld market and wastes time and money on psvr. A proprietary device just wont cut it in this market and imagine arrogant Sony would have learned nothing in all these years. Don't forget, "in a few years" from now the handheld market will be even more competitive with likes of SD2, Switch 2, etc....
 
With the success of steam deck, Sony is having delusions of grandeur. They should have always kept one foot in the door but bailed on handheld market and wastes time and money on psvr. A proprietary device just wont cut it in this market and imagine arrogant Sony would have learned nothing in all these years. Don't forget, "in a few years" from now the handheld market will be even more competitive with likes of SD2, Switch 2, etc....
It's always how Sony operates, they are always late to the party, or bail out, or never finish something properly and refine the experience enough for people to choose them first or make Sony devices among their top selections. The company has a serious lack of vision, but also as I noticed with almost all their products they sell: They don't use their own products, as is evident from their Noise Cancelling Headphones or other products. They always have a terrible user experience and features that cannot be disabled, and even if they have a toggle to disable/enable them, they often don't work, etc.

And this is the same problem I foresee for their handheld: It is competing with too many, already superiour alternatives and Sony fucked off from the handheld market a long time ago instead of further investing into it and perfecting it, they let other people do the job for them. Now, they believe they can jump back into it, but they don't even know where to begin.

Nintendo does what Nintendo does, which is extremely low-end hardware sold at markup prices with good first-party exclusives, which is how Ninty makes cash. The other competitors go for medium-end/low-high-end hardware with an open system and thus have versatility. Sony has neither of these. Their first-party lineup is mediocre at best, and even if some will disagree with me on the quality of their first-party lineup (which is subjective anyways), nobody can disagree on the next part: their first-party lineup is meagre. They simply don't have enough first-part titles in their lineup to justify the same exclusivity for their console that Nintendo can & does. And again, those that are in their lineup just aren't as highly regarded or remembered as being good as Nintendo exclusives, it's just the reality of it. And then the next problem: They also cannot compete with the versatility and open nature of the SteamDeck or its alternatives.

All in all, this product will likely flop and they will abandon it again due to it performing bad in terms of sales, because they don't realize what the market wants and needs, they just try to copy someone else's success without understanding what made it succeed in the first place, and for both the Switch and the SteamDeck, the reasons are vastly different, and Sony can cover neither of those reasons, but knowing Sony, they are also too afraid to do anything new and find their own success strategy, simply wanting to emulate the success of others as many cowardy businesses that don't understand their customers do.
 
gl nintendo because this company still does think they will have no competitor with their “next gen” upcoming system and exclusive ip
 
On second thoughts, if Vita 2 can be hacked it's welcome to the convoluted handheld market. If it fails I could always use another beautiful paperweight for my pile of dick doodles :p
 
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Can't wait for them to abandon this one out of the gate too.

I'll never forgive them for what they did to the Vita, such wasted potential :cry:

You're probably right, but they should heavily support it because it gives them an opportunity to make cheaper games. They can't do that on PS5 without taking criticism probably, especially after they came out with PS5 Pro to promote b3st gr4fx.
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playstation portal PRO confirmed

$700 with no umd drive.
 
I doubt they will go with MemoryStick, pretty sure the maximum it can go is 32GB (SDHC), so that's a no-go. If they do even include a MemoryStick reader, then the internal storage will have to be sized accordingly (absolutely minimum 8GB, but 32GB is pretty much necessary these days with how unnecessarily big games are).

What I'm more worried about, is if they can even match the PSP, let alone the Vita.
They should add more formats to the pretty well specced media player, like FLAC, Vorbis, Opus, ALAC, VP8, VP9, Theora, and some other popular ones I may have missed. After my PSP battery magically repaired itself (it's STILL the original battery, and I got ~5hrs with max brightness idling on XMB), I've started using it as a media player, because it has MUCH better sound output than my laptop or my phones. It's not nearly as "muddy", and certain frequency ranges don't push out others not even as nearly as my other devices.
If they do end up adding more media features, I really hope they put in a Wolfson DAC this time around as well.

If they do end up filling it with anti-consumer GaaS/SaaS/anticonsumer-as-a-service shit, then I definitely don't want anything to do with it. While my PSP is still better than some modern devices, it very much is showing its age already, sadly, and would be great to get something that's similar or better until the inevitable were to happen.
 
I can see Sony executives wanting to get a piece of the Switch, but I couldn't see them actually trying again. If Sony tries to appeal to older consumers that want cutting edge graphics, how will that translate to a hybrid handheld?

I cite the mobile market as the reason the handheld market dried up, but the Vita had a series of poor decisions. Expensive memory and lack of third party support were the two big ones. The PSP did exceptionally well, but changing market conditions and poor design decisions sank the Vita.

If Sony wants a hybrid that'll compete with the Switch and Steam Deck, it'd need a pricepoint similar to those two. It'd need good word of mouth, which means no proprietary memory cards that cost at least 1/3 of the hybrid itself. Above all else, it would need software, which means great third party support.
 

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