Sony officially confirmed its new PlayStation Handheld last night and now a fresh rumor claims the 8-inch device will be arriving in November. That claim comes from Tom Henderson, the same reporter who originally detailed Sony’s Project Q handheld last month.
“Currently scheduled to release in mid November 2023,” henderson said In a tweet this morning. Sony hasn’t announced pricing or an exact release as of late, only revealing that the PlayStation Handheld will launch “later this year.”
Sony’s PlayStation handheld, known simply as Project Q for now, will allow PS5 owners to stream games to an 8-inch LCD screen, with controllers on either side that are similar to the DualSense PS5 controller. The games won’t play natively on the device, meaning you’ll need to have them installed on the PS5 and have good Wi-Fi connectivity to stream them.
Sony hasn’t mentioned whether you’ll be able to use its PlayStation Handheld outside your home, but you’ll likely be able to use Sony’s Remote Play technology to access your PS5 games on the go .
Sony is clearly responding to the growth in handheld gaming in recent years. Modern handheld consoles have been dominated by Nintendo’s Switch and Valve’s Steam Deck showed what’s possible for PC gaming on the go. Whether or not the PlayStation Handheld is a success depends on if people are willing to spend money on a device that’s limited to PS5 game streaming only.
It’s already possible to stream PS5 games to PC, Mac, and iOS and Android devices, so of course there’s the question of who this device is really for. The adaptive triggers are a nice touch, but it certainly looks like you can get the rest with many of the current mobile devices and controller options.
Sony could be expanding this PlayStation handheld to cloud streaming, which seems to hint at a new cloud gaming push given a recent job listing, which certainly seems to have been discussed earlier this week by PlayStation chief Jim Ryan. would make sense after teasing “quite aggressive plans” for But even with cloud streaming options there’s still a big question mark over whether PS5 owners will want a PlayStation Handheld that can’t play games without an internet connection.
Logitech has tried something similar at a hefty price, so Sony’s success may well come down to whether it’s ready to stream PlayStation games to the cloud and the price of this PlayStation Handheld. some people (including ledge Managing Editor Alex Kranz) argues that the phone is terrible for cloud gaming and wants dedicated devices, so we’ll see how the market reacts.
Sony says we’ll have additional details about Project Q in the coming months.
