With Nintendo's continued success with Switch, the rise of handheld PC devices, and the PS Portal finding surprising popularity, it seems the desire to play games on the go is still present.
We're past the days of dedicated, standalone portable consoles like the PS Vita, but as mentioned, Nintendo has proven there's an appetite for home console-level gaming in a handheld form factor.
Someone has taken this idea and run with it, modding a PS4 into a (relatively) small portable device.
Over on Reddit, user wewillmakeitnow shared images of the final build: a native PS4 crammed into something around the size of a Steam Deck.
To make this portable PS4, wewillmakeitnow modified a PS4 Slim's motherboard to "make it as compact as possible" without losing any functionality.
They also say it features a "redesigned" cooling system, a 7-inch OLED screen, and HDMI output for connection to a TV.
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It runs on rechargeable batteries that last up to three hours, but can also be played while plugged in if necessary.
There's also a video of the device to prove it works:
It's not planned to be sold, and was simply made as a "personal engineering challenge".
While it's pretty chunky and doesn't look particularly comfortable to hold, it's a super impressive achievement. Having access to your PS4 games in a portable form factor, and playing them natively, would be brilliant.
There has been talk over the last year or so about Sony making a portable device in the future, one that's capable of running modern games. Whether that's true remains to be seen, but if one modder can pull this off, perhaps Sony's dedicated engineers can figure something out.
Anyway, what do you think of this portable PS4? Would you like something like this? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com]





Comments 22
It's always thrilling when a person does something that people have been asking big tech company for ages and out of nowhere a random guy makes it alone. Same with mods for games. Amazing
Thing must sound like this going to explode in your hands. My PS4 sounded horrifying towards the end.
These kinds of homemade portables are so neat. In particular, the one where guys were cutting down Wii motherboards to create portable Gamecubes. Love to see this.
@Americansamurai1 Mine was past warranty and I disassembled it (pretty easy), cleaned the fan and swapped the thermal paste on the CPU and it was back to like new, comparatively quiet even in games like God of War that sounded like a jet engine. Reports online seem to suggest the thermal compound they used wasn't good enough for 7+ years and would deteriorate after 3-5 for a lot of people.
@themightyant Yep! I highly recommend looking up guides on maintaining any & all hardware being used long term. The "jet-engine" sound that everyone memes on is rarely because the system can't handle the game it was playing. It's just lack of maintenance after heavy use over the years.
@Americansamurai1 same here but I watched a video cleaned it out and it was good as new.
Only had loudness on ps4 pro that was horrendous while playing rdr2, had to have headphones plugged in 🤣
@themightyant I kind of accidentally stepped in it to so I don't think it was salvageable lol
@Mr_Vengeance1980 I kind of accidentally stepped on it to so I don't think it was salvageable lol
The analog sticks are asymmetrical. You had one job!
Excellent job... except asymmetrical sticks. That is the biggest issue as same as on Switch.
Oh, look!
An actually great Switch 2!
#Switch2Playstation
@MTMike87
Great shout! Are there a go-to site/youtube channel?
I wish I had the energy to research how to open up and fix my DualSenses that drift and 'just' are out of warranty, conveniently enough.
Pretty cool. Don't know why the loud music rather than talking it up but I guess that's how videos are made these days.
Switch 2 is basically PS4 power in a smaller box so Sony could do it if they wanted too. Getting a PS5 in a handheld is going to take some doing though.
I still wish Nintendo would do the opposite and make a Switch 2 w/o the screen, battery, dock or magnetic rails. Has to be a decent $ savings for a brick w/ tv out for old folk who just want to game on their tvs. Maybe enough to make it worth while. Switch Lite didn't switch or have TV out, they sold that.
Love a shed man video and still wonder if he can do it, why can't the boffins. And we know it would sell now. I'd have one with my steam deck no drama.
@Americansamurai1 May it rest in peace.
@Mr_Vengeance1980 rip gone but not forgotten
I think that Sony should release an official portable PS4. I still think they'd make money off it, despite there being fewer and fewer PS4 games releasing.
Can't believe they played god of war on it. I remember when I upgraded my PS4 to the pro and sold the old one, I started god of war, loaded previous save from the old playstation. It would get really loud after a few seconds and then shut off. It was the only game doing that. Every other game worked fine. I just didn't touch god of war after that. Oh and it happened on another game too. It was Dauntless during 1 specific monster fight. Because it had some warp abilities or something. I can't remember the name. It would always shut off at that boss. But the devs did something to fix it a week later, so didn't happen anymore.
Very cool, no one wants to make these things officially as it seems like Sega Nomad, they just don't see a need to. They think oh we have to support it, yet treat the PS Portal as the remote play/cloud device it is and no development so their minds are just in the clouds of making sense it seems.
These custom made reusing parts handhelds are very cool though. Seen plenty of PS2/Wii ones, they know how to reworked them it's great.
I actually have my PS4 connected to an arcade machine. There is no right stick unfortunately, so a lot of games such as FPS games are out, but for a lot of others it plays beautifully. i put a Youtube video of it up under my username Steeleye50 if you want to check it out - also has other modded arcade machines and a digital pinball.
The offset sticks ruin the design.
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