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It’s becoming increasingly obvious at this point that the PS6 will have a portable element.
Exactly how Sony is going to deliver this remains to be seen, but if you read between the lines of everything it’s saying, it keeps reiterating that one of its goals with the next generation is to expand out of the living room.
CEO Hideaki Nishino touched on this in his Famitsu interview earlier in the month, and now a probing Q&A with investors has shed more light on its goals.
Throughout the document, it repeatedly mentions “changes in how players play and their evolving needs”, and outright says it needs to “provide experiences tailored to users’ playstyles beyond the living room”.
It keeps dressing this up by talking about its new PS Monitor and Pulse Portable Speakers, which are designed for bedrooms and offices. But in tandem it also talks a lot about the success of the PS Portal, and how that’s proven there’s a demand for playing all around the house.
While you do need to read between the lines, it’s pretty clear Sony’s been watching the success of the Switch and its successor, as well as portable PCs like the Steam Deck and ROG Xbox Ally X.
We know there have been rumours about a portable PS6 for quite some time, and many hypothesise that the PS5’s Low Power Mode – which Sony is allegedly desperate for devs to use – was implemented as a Trojan horse for exactly that.
I fully expect a full-blown PlayStation handheld to be introduced in the near-future, which will be compatible with existing PS Store libraries and allow you to take many of your games on the go.
It’ll be different to both the PSP and PS Vita because it’ll no longer need its own dedicated library, meaning it’ll be compatible with all – or, at least, most – of the software already available on the PS Store.
This means it’ll serve as an extension of the PS6 and PS5 experience, and won’t necessarily need to sell tens of millions of units to be a success.
Obviously in this era of expensive memory, its price is very much up for debate. But I do think there’ll be a big enough market for fans who want to take their PlayStation games on the go.