Sony Working on Handheld Console for PS5 Games to Rival Switch (bloomberg.com) 19
Sony is developing a new portable gaming device capable of playing PlayStation 5 games, Bloomberg News reported Monday. The project follows the 2023 release of PlayStation Portal, a streaming-only handheld, and aims to compete with Nintendo's dominant Switch console and potential Microsoft offerings in the portable gaming space.
PSP returns? (Score:2)
Valuable point (Score:3)
Handhelds are like Keurig for coffee (Score:1)
They're saying it could be a few years away (I've read 2027 in a couple places), and that they still may never release it. With that level of commitment, they might want to save their time and money, and just not bother with a handheld. There are some great handhelds in the market already, so they'd need to have a game changing system (or be first to market with new tech) to make a dent in the market.
There's Nintendo and there's everyone else. And the switch only plays PS3/XBox360 games...which were released almost 20 years ago. Nintendo has great 1st party games, but the graphics suck on everything else and you have to play really compromised games. I don't even bother. I love the idea, but I get so little time to play games these days with small kids, I just wait until I can sit at a big TV with good graphics if I want to play a shooter, RPG, or modern game. Nintendo switch games are like Keurig
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If Sony could pull of a PS5 in a handheld, I'd be the first to buy it. I want something I can take on flights that won't suck for grown up games.
Law of thermodynamics gets in the way. With current processes you're not going to get a handheld console that is as powerful as a best of set-top consoles. This is why Steam deck and others are not as good as a laptop or desktop. Looking at broader categories, an iPad represents one of the better performing devices at that size. And there are compromises when compared to say a MacBook. Hard to dissipate heat when you're small, and hard to fit a big battery in a small place.
I think Nintendo has a huge advant
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With current processes you're not going to get a handheld console that is as powerful as a best of set-top consoles. This is why Steam deck and others are not as good as a laptop or desktop ... I think Nintendo has a huge advantage because their games are not about cutting edge graphics and they always lagged behind the competition in terms of raw system performance ... Nintendo's formula of pairing low-end hardware with family-friendly experiences ... seems like a game for adults and isn't family-friendly at all ...
FlightSim2020 and all my desktop favorites play better than great with a dualshock4 1280x800 on device or 1080p externally, or in windowed mode stretched out over both screens in kde plasma on the Deck. Switch on the other hand is a high quality ARM android tablet with detachable controllers. You maybe oughta recalibrate your expectations from your idea of a laptop or desktop If there's anybody that can deliver PS5-grade performance in a compact form factor, it's Sony. And Valve having done what it did wit
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Meh I have to say the new Zelda Echoes of Wisdom has captivated me recently and the game is fun and addictive as hell.
Graphics aren't needed if the gameplay is right.
Why not just a PC storefront? (Score:2)
I'll never understand why the console makers - Nintendo and SONY in particular - don't just release PC store fronts. The demand for their content on that platform has been made crystal clear. They already have a store front cloud infrastructure. Its like their executives just don't understand how PCs work. Nintendo goes around pissing money away by suing everyone, and Sony gives their profit margins to others by listing their games on their store fronts. The PC (which includes Windows, mac, Linux, Steam OS)
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(I'd have edited this in, but no edit button...) - AND with Sony, they already have x86 binaries - they could conceivable build a PS4/PS5 execution engine (a hypervisor or container tech, or whatever), to run PS4 and PS5 games without even any effort from their vendors. I mean heck, they could do the same for PS1/2/3 through emulation as well if they really wanted. It makes no sense to me to just leave that potential money on the table.
Origin (or whatever EA calls it now) was always dead in the water becaus
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I'll never understand why the console makers - Nintendo and SONY in particular - don't just release PC store fronts. The demand for their content on that platform has been made crystal clear. They already have a store front cloud infrastructure. Its like their executives just don't understand how PCs work. Nintendo goes around pissing money away by suing everyone, and Sony gives their profit margins to others by listing their games on their store fronts. The PC (which includes Windows, mac, Linux, Steam OS) is an open platform - why voluntarily forfeit that profit? I guess their platform lock-in logic has twisted their minds or something.
Just release the PlayStation Storefront on PC. Just release Nintendo eShop on PC. They'd get to keep their 30%, and could even allow others to list their games, and keep their cloud rent. It's baffling to me that neither Sony nor Nintendo can figure that out. Maybe they think its anathema to what they actually want, which is lock-in? That's mostly an illusion, but also, this is still platform lock-in, it just isn't hardware lock-in. It's actually better lock-in because it's cloud lock-in, which is far more valuable. It's baffling to me. Just give people what they want and make it easy, and they'll pay for it.
Because they make money on the hardware sales, not to mention: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." They have been following the same business model for 40 years, and with a few exceptions (Wii U, Virtual Boy) it has served them very, very well. If they sold games on the PC, they might sell more software, but they would sell less hardware.
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Maybe Nintendo makes money on hardware sales (hard to say if Sony does the same) - but I can say, I'll never buy Sony hardware when there is so much awesome PC hardware out there now (Steam Deck especially). The problem is, it IS broken. Nintendo used to have 2 concurrent hardware platforms, and moved a lot of physical games at retail. The entire paradigm has changed. Now they have 1 hardware platform, and are increasingly shipping (and incentivizing) download sales. They are also facing unprecedented compe
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Because they make killer margins on EVERYTHING they sell for their console?
If Nintendo released their games on PC, I would not have bought a Switch. I want to play Fire Emblems, Zeldas, and most Marios. So I am going to buy a Switch. Once I have Switch, I'll buy a bunch of other games for the convenience of playing them on that system, even though they may be available on PC. Once I have a Switch, I'll take the Switch with me on trips, so I'll buy other things. They will make 30% on those too which they wou
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2 things: If Nintendo has a store on PC - you could buy all those 20 games on there. They'd still get the same cut. I know you said physical games, but is that really the future? For me - I actively avoid buying third party games on Nintendo at this point, and I haven't bought physical games in a couple of years now on Switch. Early on, yes, I bought some third party games on Switch (and regretted it sometimes, because of performance problems, which yes, contributed to buying less on Nintendo hardware.) I b
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PC is an open platform. Anyone can release for it and there's no (required) middleman to pay.
The consoles however are a different story. You wanna release something on a console? You best be prepared to pay a portion of every sale to the console maker. You wanna release on something on a console? You best be prepared to alter your creation to fit the console maker's demands. (Censorship, Gimmick of the generation, denied featur
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Steam, Battle.net, Epic Game Store, all are cloud platforms with their own form of lock-in, and they all take their cut - up to 30%, and realistically, if you want to ship volume on PC, you need to be on one or all of those stores. They are the PC middlemen. But yeah, it's an open platform - that means others can open their own store fronts (cloud platforms) with their own perks and unique features. Basically, that argument doesn't hold up. A seller on PC can still achieve loyalty and other forms of lock-in
Or it will be huge.. (Score:3)
Or it will not run PS5 games natively.
Mobile memory speed is a massive hard cap on performance of portable consoles in general, with the pretty huge steam deck having a bandwidth of 88GB/s
That's very paltry if compared to the 448 GB/s the PS5 has.
Even the nintendo switch is primarily bottlenecked by it's memory speed.
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I'm saying it is impossible to make a portable device that can run PS5 games as said by the article, unless it is at least laptop sized, or it's streaming stuff which sony already has a device that does it.