The handheld gaming market has flourished to an almost unexpected degree in the last several years, and though the Nintendo Switch has been primarily responsible for that, we’re beginning to see signs of others entering (or re-entering) the space as well. Valve has, of course, been making waves with the Steam Deck for a while now, while Microsoft is also confirmed to be in the early stages of developing a portable Xbox. Now, it’s being reported that Sony is working on a new handheld as well.
That’s as per a Bloomberg report, which claims that Sony is currently in the early stages of working on a portable device that will be able to natively run PS5 games. The device is meant to compete against the Nintendo Switch, or any potential handheld that Xbox releases down the line. Earlier this year, reports claimed that Sony was working on a device capable of natively running PS4 titles. Read more on that through here.
As per the report, the handheld will build on the PlayStation Portal, but is still several years away from release, and isn’t necessarily guaranteed to see the light of day- which isn’t surprising, given how early in development it clearly is.
There’s certainly going to be no shortage of gaming handheld hardware releases in the coming years. Nintendo is set to release the Switch successor next year, while Valve is also planning on launching a Steam Deck 2 at some point (though not in the near future).
