A successor (of sorts) to PlayStation Portable and PS Vita is reportedly in development at Sony. The company is apparently working on a handheld PS5 system that would seemingly compete with Nintendo’s upcoming Switch 2 and Valve’s Steam Deck.
According to Bloomberg, the PS5 portable system is years away from hitting the market–if it does at all. There is still a possibility Sony decides to pull the plug on the handheld. The report states that the PlayStation Portal was originally planned as a similar product to Steam Deck before becoming dependent on streaming via a PS5 console. However, a new PlayStation Portal update has introduced a cloud-streaming beta for PS Plus Premium members. This means a PS5 isn’t required to play games on the device.
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Sony isn’t alone in wanting to expand to the handheld market. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has been very open about his desires for an Xbox handheld, though it, too, is “a few years out,” if it ever releases. Meanwhile, Nintendo will likely unveil the Switch 2 in the coming months, and the company confirmed the upcoming system will be backward compatible with the current Switch earlier this month.
A possible PS5 portable system would see Sony returning to the handheld market for the first time since launching PS Vita in Japan in 2011 (coming to North America in early 2012). The system was discontinued in Japan in early 2019, before the PS5 was released.
Before that, the PlayStation Portable came out in Japan in 2004 and North America in 2005. That Sony handheld competed with Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS throughout the mid- to late-2000s.
For more, check out GameSpot’s hands-on article with PlayStation Portal.