The PlayStation Portal handheld may become a more enticing purchase for a wider range of players in the future, as Sony will be looking into implementing cloud streaming support in the coming months.
Speaking with Japanese publication AV Watch, Sony’s Hideaki Nishino talked about the handheld console, saying that Remote Play and cloud streaming are only different in terms of server location, and thus there are no technical hurdles to overcome to implement cloud streaming support. As such, Sony has focused on Remote Play only for the time being but will be looking into expanding the console’s features in the future.
This statement is a little baffling, as the PlayStation Portal would have benefited quite a bit from day one cloud streaming support, but at least it is nice to know that it may be coming in the future. As things stand, the device is a great option to enjoy PlayStation 5 games, but feels somewhat limited, as highlighted by Kai in his review. The handheld will launch tomorrow, November 15th, worldwide.
The PlayStation Portal isn’t quite the portable successor that players have been asking for from Sony since the decline of the PlayStation Vita. That being said, the PlayStation Portal does one job and does it exceedingly well. It might not reinvent the remote play experience, but for those relying on controller clips to mount a phone to the top of a DualSense controller or third-party controllers that use a mobile device as the display, an official Sony product just makes sense for a unified solution. It might not replace those Backbone controllers and other devices that players might have in their home, but the PlayStation Portal might wind up being the controller that players start reaching for first.
