Sony has spoken out about the success of PlayStation Portal. The justification was also given as to why no independent handheld was given priority.
More than ten years after the launch of the PS Vita, Sony tried again at the end of 2023 and launched PlayStation Portal. This does not give players a standalone handheld. Instead, the streaming hardware requires a PS5 on which the games are calculated.
Trotz initial criticism It quickly became clear after the launch that customers are definitely interested. PlayStation Portal was sold out immediately and the hardware still cannot be supplied by all retailers. As Sony has now admitted, the company itself is surprised by the PS Portal success.
Demand exceeds Sony's expectations
In one Gespräch mit Game File said Hiromi Wakai, vice president of product management at PlayStation, for the first time about the PlayStation Portal handheld.
As for sales figures, Wakai did not provide any information, but confirmed that Portal continues to surprise with its success: “Although we cannot provide figures, demand continues to exceed our expectations.â€
She also addressed the question of the idea behind PlayStation Portal. After all, many gamers were hoping for a kind of PlayStation Vita 2 after Nintendo celebrated great success with the Switch.
“The original idea of the PlayStation Portal Remote Player came from our goal to provide gamers with a high-quality console gaming experience,” said Wakai. “The initial discussions about this product were based on the question of how to expand the gaming experience of the PS5 console.â€
PlayStation Portal
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A separate handheld was not the starting point of the internal discussions. The technically impressive PS Vita was launched at the end of 2011. However, the handheld was a flop, which may still be affecting Sony's product plans.
On the topic: PlayStation Portal – analysis video, classification as a hardware platform and bitrate limitation
Developers were taken into account
There's another reason why the concept of a streaming handheld was in favor. They didn't want to burden the game developers with additional hardware that needed to be supported. “We didn’t want to require additional work from game developers to achieve this goal,†said Wakai.
PlayStation Portal was therefore always intended for this, to expand the PS5 device family. Sony didn't want to introduce a completely new platform.
Many gamers are skeptical about the concept of a streaming handheld, which is what Sony expected. Because the hardware is only suitable for a specific purpose, but not for the general public.
“PlayStation Portal was intended from the start as a product best suited to people with specific needs and those who want to play in a specific way. The reaction after the announcement was exactly what we expected,†concluded the Vice President of Product Management at PlayStation.
MORE ON THE SUBJECT:
Is the cloud function coming to PS Portal?
A use case could be added later: According to rumors, the hardware is certainly suitable for supporting cloud games that run on a third-party server.
Basically, this option is no different from Remote Play in combination with the PS5, as even Sony management has admitted in the past. The difference be just the location of the server. A PS5 would no longer be necessary with cloud support.
What do you think about PlayStation Portal? Do you already own the streaming handheld and are convinced of the possible uses? Or was it even a bad purchase?
Further news about PlayStation Portal.
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