Highlights
- Sony has announced its new handheld device called PlayStation Portal, which allows players to stream PS5 games onto an 8-inch screen with a built-in DualSense controller.
- However, the device's functionality is currently limited, as it can only stream games from a PS5 that is switched on and has the game installed or the disc inserted.
- The potential redeeming quality of the PlayStation Portal is that it runs on Android OS, which opens up the possibility of modding and rooting the device to access different cloud gaming platforms, including Xbox Game Pass and its highly anticipated game, Starfield.
‘Playing Starfield on a PlayStation console?’ Yes, it’s a big statement and no, it’s not as simple as Bethesda’s RPG just being available to buy on Sony’s upcoming remote play device. But ultimately yes, if all is as it seems, then the PlayStation Portal should technically have the functionality to play Starfield via the double-backdoors of cloud gaming and a rooted Android device.
But let’s start at the beginning.
Sony’s new handheld device (which we can’t in good faith call an actual handheld gaming console) finally has a name: PlayStation Portal. Bold of Sony to call it something that can be abbreviated to PSP (Sony’s well-liked line of actual handheld gaming consoles), but there we have it. The slick but limited little gizmo that will let you play PS5 games by streaming them into the palm of your hand—which you can already do for way less than its $199 RRP, by the way—is the PlayStation Portal.
The specs don’t sound terrible by any means. At 8 inches, the 60@1080 screen is bigger than those of the Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, or your typical smartphone, and it’s cool that it’s got the DualSense controller, complete with haptic feedback, built into it. That’s arguably the best gaming controller in the world, so it’s not to be sniffed at.
But all that build quality is undermined by its extremely limited use, which is to stream games from your PS5, which needs to be switched on and have the game you want to play installed and/or the disc in the drive. At this point, you can’t even play the games available via cloud gaming on PlayStation Plus, though Sony say they’re looking into this functionality for the future.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m a big proponent of in-home streaming, and have relished turning my old phone into a retro emulation station/cloud gaming device that I can use to stream games from my home PC, my PS4 Pro, cloud gaming via Game Pass, and GeForce Now. But it’s the multiplicity there that makes this appealing. All the above-mentioned stuff, PS5 streaming, emulated games from the 8-64-bit eras? By comparison, paying $200 for a device that just gives you one of those things doesn’t sound great, does it?
But there is some hope for the PlayStation Portal, one little talked-about aspect of it that could provide a way of putting that nice big screen and DualSense functionality to good use: that redeeming quality is the fact that it runs on Android OS (something we found out back in May via a leak, via The Verge).
Now, of course Sony is going to lock down whatever frontend or OS the Portal is going to be running as tightly as possible. Its UI is going to be all slick and synced up with PS5, and there won’t be a Google Play Store or place to ‘tap seven times to unlock developer options’ like you readily find on an Android phone. But if Android is hanging around under the hood there, then you can bet that in quick time the modding community will find a way to root the Sony device and unleash the Portal’s possibilities.
Once they do, then the potential of the PlayStation Portal will be unlocked, because you’ll be able to download APKs of all the different cloud gaming platforms (GeForce Now, Steam Link, Xbox Game Pass, PS5 Remote Play). Yep, as Game Pass has an Android app, there’ll technically be no reason you shouldn’t be able to play Xbox games on your device via cloud gaming, including Starfield, which will be playable from Day One on Game Pass.
One of the few remaining unknowns about the PlayStation Portal is the power of the chip it’s running on. Even if it’s just designed for streaming, there’s a high chance that the device is using a Qualcomm chipset; a notion given extra credence by a recent interview at The Verge, where Qualcomm gaming director Mithun Chandrasekhar said that Qualcomm is ‘currently working with Sony to figure out ways to make its games a normal part of the handheld ecosystem’.
If the PlayStation Portal is running on a reasonably strong, modern Qualcomm chip, then it should not only be powerful enough to support all the cloud gaming platforms, but also emulation at least up until the sixth console generation (Xbox, GameCube, PlayStation 2), at which point you can get your RetroArches, your Dolphins, and your AetherSX2s on there and use it as a high-quality emulation station, sponsored by Sony.
As the PlayStation Protal is an Android device, there’s definitely some rooting, tooting fun to be had on the PlayStation Portal, and the Venn diagram of Sony fanboys and Android tinkerers are probably relishing the idea of subversively streaming Starfield to it. Again though, you can kind of do all this stuff on any Android device, so it’s still quite a bit of money to splash out; at that point, you just have to ask yourself if the undeniably high-quality controller and the sizeable screen are worth it, and whether you want to spend $200 on a device that you basically need to hack to get the most out of.