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Do you think that Sony should make a proper handheld instead of screwing around with this glorified remote play accessory?

Should they make a full-fledged handheld?

  • Yeah

    Votes: 93 36.8%
  • No

    Votes: 129 51.0%
  • Idk, but I would sure go for some cocoa puffs right about now

    Votes: 31 12.3%

  • Total voters
    253

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Watched before... and I could explain to you what is happening there...but no point. Since you are refusing to earn, and I am actually bing nice.

let me give you a hint though....

Z1 Extermhas a GPU cocko2.1Ghz peak. That means it has a GPU peak of 3.2TF. That's about twice as powerful as a PS4. Not as powerful as a PS4pro.... and of course it can run games at 1080p at settings lower than what you would use in a PS4 at above 60fps. And lets not forget it has a better CPU than what was in a PS4. This is running the chip at peak performance... 30 watts, you will be lucky if you get 90mins of battery life off that.

I could say more, but ps, try and educate yourself... would save people like me a lot of trouble.
And that bolded part?....sigh..ok. I give up.

Now that you've edited your post several times, I can actually read it.

I hadn't seen the 2.1ghz peak, but you are correct that is what is being listed.

At 3.2TF, that's still double what you have with a steam deck and nearly as powerful as an XSS.

Again, I'll say with lower resolution, AI upscaling, and limited framerates*, you'll be able to play PS5 games that look fairly decent and run fairly decently.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
Now that you've edited your post several times, I can actually read it.

I hadn't seen the 2.1ghz peak, but you are correct that is what is being listed.

At 3.2TF, that's still double what you have with a steam deck and nearly as powerful as an XSS.

Again, I'll say with lower resolution, AI upscaling, and limited framerates*, you'll be able to play PS5 games that look fairly decent and run fairly decently.
And we have now come full circle to what I said at the start of this.

Any portable Sony makes that can do this, would be expensive. very expensive. And if it's just something designed to run PS5 games at some really low settings, then what you have is something even less powerful than the XSS, and significantly less powerful when you consider that in portable (non-tethered) mode you probably run it at 15W not the 30W.... and that in itself is a problem, especially if you look at how it is for MS right now.

And furthermore, if XSS should have thought anyone anything, is that porting stuff from a higher specced SKU down to a lower one even on the same platform is not as simple as just dialing back settings and changing resolution... but I am not going to get into that. Just know that with this, YOu are not just asking devs to make 1 version of a PS game, you are asking them to make 3. PS5 standard, PS5 portable docked, PS5 portable undocked.
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
The market has spoken and it doesn't want another. Given all the players in the handheld market these days its best not to waste their time.

The market has spoken to the tune of 125 million switches sold. You dillusional if you think it was nintendo games alone that drive those sales. Ask yourself, if the switch is a dedicated console, how many does it sell?
Indeed the market has spoken, just thst many choose to ignore what it's really saying.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
And we have now come full circle to what I said at the start of this.

Any portable Sony makes that can do this, would be expensive. very expensive. And if it's just something designed to run PS5 games at some really low settings, then what you have is something even less powerful than the XSS, and significantly less powerful when you consider that in portable (non-tethered) mode you probably run it at 15W not the 30W.... and that in itself is a problem, especially if you look at how it is for MS right now.

And furthermore, if XSS should have thought anyone anything, is that porting stuff from a higher specced SKU down to a lower one even on the same platform is not as simple as just dialing back settings and changing resolution... but I am not going to get into that. Just know that with this, YOu are not just asking devs to make 1 version of a PS game, you are asking them to make 3. PS5 standard, PS5 portable docked, PS5 portable undocked.

I think you still aren't factoring in the fillrate for a 7 or 8 inch screen which doesn't require nearly the resolution.

XSS *targets* 1440p, this thing would only need to target 720p to 900p and again I think it would look fine.

I don't think you'd target 15w for PS5 games, I think it would be 30 or bust. But battery life depends not just on the power requirements, but the battery capacity as well and that might be part of the reason they going with an 8 inch screen instead of 7 for a little extra room for a bigger battery.

And yeah, you have more skus to optimize for, but the difference here is that you're doing it to gain market share in different segments rather than two home consoles that largely share the same segment.

As for it being expensive, I'm not sure why it would be more expensive than Asus which is rumored at 700 dollars USD with some elements that aren't needed because this isn't going to be a PC.

No biometrics are needed, no touchpad, no windows license. Plus they can subsidize it more than Asus and eventually, the price of these will go down. Further they have economies of scale that Asus don't have here.

I think like for like Sony could sell theirs for as low as 500, if they sell it for a loss.
 

Baki

Member
Wtf?

Ok..I blame AMD for this.

Why RDNA3 is half RDNA2?

GPUs based on RDNA 3 have dual-issue stream processors so that up to two shader instructions can be executed per clock cycle under certain parallelism conditions. More info here: https://chipsandcheese.com/2023/01/07/microbenchmarking-amds-rdna-3-graphics-architecture/

And we have now come full circle to what I said at the start of this.

Any portable Sony makes that can do this, would be expensive. very expensive. And if it's just something designed to run PS5 games at some really low settings, then what you have is something even less powerful than the XSS, and significantly less powerful when you consider that in portable (non-tethered) mode you probably run it at 15W not the 30W.... and that in itself is a problem, especially if you look at how it is for MS right now.

And furthermore, if XSS should have thought anyone anything, is that porting stuff from a higher specced SKU down to a lower one even on the same platform is not as simple as just dialing back settings and changing resolution... but I am not going to get into that. Just know that with this, YOu are not just asking devs to make 1 version of a PS game, you are asking them to make 3. PS5 standard, PS5 portable docked, PS5 portable undocked.

I think a portable that can play all PS4 games and some select PS5 games would be a nice profit driver for Sony. I think Sony would price the portable at a profit, target the enthusiast crowd, and make good money on the hardware/software even at a low install base. The benefit of the portable plugging into an existing library is that it's not a seperate software ecosystem. Now, would this portable receive some PS5 multiplatform games that were designed for XSS and PC? I can certainly see that happening. At the same time, I do not see Sony mandating that existing and new PS5 games have to run on this portable (precisely for the reason you outlined above).
 

winjer

Gold Member
No, they can't.

Steamdeck has a 4c/8 thread CPU + 8CU GPU. Cost as much as a PS5.
ROG Ally CPU 6c/12t + 12CU GPU... cost almost as much as 2 PS5s in its base spec.

Those things are in the PS4 power ballpark (not PS5) and look at how much they cost. By the time you can make handheld that won't go through its battery in 10mins that is as powerful as the PS5, the PS7 would be on the market.

The SteamDeck and the RoG Ally are PCs that have to make their profit as they are sold. Those 500$ already include a nice percentage for Valve and Asus.
A console on the other hand, can be subsidized by the software it sells. So it can be sold for the cost of production or even at a loss.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Steamdeck users probably aren't buying content from another storefront.

SteamDeck uses Linux and can run a lot of things. It's not a closed ecosystem.
Even MS is now trying to create a version of Windows for it.
 
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The market has spoken to the tune of 125 million switches sold. You dillusional if you think it was nintendo games alone that drive those sales. Ask yourself, if the switch is a dedicated console, how many does it sell?
Indeed the market has spoken, just thst many choose to ignore what it's really saying.

Why you irate? This a thread about a Sony handheld and the Vita bombed, so the market has spoken regarding PlayStation, nothing to do with Switch :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
Why you irate? This a thread about a Sony handheld and the Vita bombed, so the market has spoken regarding PlayStation, nothing to do with Switch :messenger_tears_of_joy:

I'm not irate, just slithly irked by the "factual tone". So what your saying is that if a company loses one generation, the market has spoken forever? If that was the case Nintendo wouldn't exist since they had more than one failed console.

Not sure also how you can say in the same sentence that any new handheld product would have nothing to do with switch, with it being the single most successful handheld over the past 10 years. It's like saying opening a mcdonalds accross the street from burger king has nothing to do with each other......

And that's not even touching on the several reason why vita failed that no longer exist.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
They have wasted money and resources twice now. They won’t do it again.
VR is their side project now.
I mean do you really want Sony to spread out their teams over three platforms?
 

Mr.Phoenix

Member
The SteamDeck and the RoG Ally are PCs that have to make their profit as they are sold. Those 500$ already include a nice percentage for Valve and Asus.
A console on the other hand, can be subsidized by the software it sells. So it can be sold for the cost of production or even at a loss.
Maybe we can say that about RoG, but sure that cant be said about the steamdeck. Its user more than ikey would be buying their games from the Steam store, which is probably what Valve expects anyways. Steamdeck is more than ikey ready a subsidized platform.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
Not Unless it can play PS4 games natively.

They need to have a huge library to compete. Otherwise it's dead to start a console or handheld from scratch.
 
I'm not irate, just slithly irked by the "factual tone". So what your saying is that if a company loses one generation, the market has spoken forever? If that was the case Nintendo wouldn't exist since they had more than one failed console.

Not sure also how you can say in the same sentence that any new handheld product would have nothing to do with switch, with it being the single most successful handheld over the past 10 years. It's like saying opening a mcdonalds accross the street from burger king has nothing to do with each other......

And that's not even touching on the several reason why vita failed that no longer exist.

So you're not irate, just irked at someone having a different opinion to your own. This is a public forum so that's going to be a regular occurrence unfortunately.

The Nintendo point is an interesting one given outside of quirks like the Virtual Boy, they've had at least relative success with everything except the GameCube I guess (which was recycled for the free hit of the Wii) and the big failure of the WiiU, which led them to the Switch (a handheld that you dock), so they have all but left the home console market because of that previous failure given Switch iterations looks to be the future. Market failures always have consequences. Vita failed from the start with sales tailing off within the first month of release, hell it took a full year for it to match the first month of PSP sales in the US. So no Sony handheld since.

Just because the Switch is successful it doesn't always mean other handhelds will be either. Aside from the PSP that did decent numbers, everything else that went up against a Ninty handheld didn't do anywhere near the same numbers, the graveyard is filled with the likes of Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Nokia NGage etc

The PS5 is printing money, but its likely that their PSVR push has also taken the place of a handheld given its relative success, so its not delusional if you look at it logically to assume there wont be another dedicated PlayStation handheld. Life is full of surprises tho 🤷‍♂️
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Maybe we can say that about RoG, but sure that cant be said about the steamdeck. Its user more than ikey would be buying their games from the Steam store, which is probably what Valve expects anyways. Steamdeck is more than ikey ready a subsidized platform.

But the ROG Ally is the better comparison here, given that the argument here is that the PS handheld should use the Z1 Exterme chipset and Asus is currently selling it at a rumored price of 700, we'll find out for sure tomorrow one way or another.

If ASUS can sell this at 700, which we all agree is largely driven by profit, because they make nothing off games, I think we can all agree that a PS handheld running the same with less features (i.e. no biometrics or touch panels for mouse movement) or running windows, could come in significantly cheaper?
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
Yes, they should. But only when they're capable of developing a handheld with the same specs as the PS5, and only if they do so during the PS5's generation.
I want to be able to play PS5 games on the go. I don't want Sony's excellent 1st party teams to diverge into making handheld-specific games.

Same goes for PSVR2. I want all their games to feature a PSVR2 mode (akin to Hellblade's or Resident Evil VII/Village VR modes). I don't really need to have exclusive PSVR2 games.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
So you're not irate, just irked at someone having a different opinion to your own. This is a public forum so that's going to be a regular occurrence unfortunately.

The Nintendo point is an interesting one given outside of quirks like the Virtual Boy, they've had at least relative success with everything except the GameCube I guess (which was recycled for the free hit of the Wii) and the big failure of the WiiU, which led them to the Switch (a handheld that you dock), so they have all but left the home console market because of that previous failure given Switch iterations looks to be the future. Market failures always have consequences. Vita failed from the start with sales tailing off within the first month of release, hell it took a full year for it to match the first month of PSP sales in the US. So no Sony handheld since.

Just because the Switch is successful it doesn't always mean other handhelds will be either. Aside from the PSP that did decent numbers, everything else that went up against a Ninty handheld didn't do anywhere near the same numbers, the graveyard is filled with the likes of Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Nokia NGage etc

The PS5 is printing money, but its likely that their PSVR push has also taken the place of a handheld given its relative success, so its not delusional if you look at it logically to assume there wont be another dedicated PlayStation handheld. Life is full of surprises tho 🤷‍♂️

I think you're just not very consistent here.

You know what else is relative? Failure. The failure of the Vita is not on the same level of the failures of the N64 (yes N64), Gamecube, and Wii U. These failures for Nintendo were of a core segment of their revenue. PSP was a successful side project for Sony, despite the failure of MULTIPLE handhelds to compete in the same space as Nintendo.

The Vita was a failure, but the bigger failure was the PS3. Sony was focusing so much on the PS3 EOL and launch of the PS4 that they weren't able to commit enough resources to Vita. There were other reasons why adoption wasn't as high, but their focus was never on Vita. The PSP was proof that Sony could compete in that space. It sold over 80 million units and was one of the highest-selling units in the industry's history... That alone suggests Sony shouldn't give up just because of one iteration. The PSP already proved Sony's success over the Game Gear, Lync, Ngage, wonderswan, e.t.c.

PSVR has not taken the place of handheld. That just doesn't make sense. They're probably putting more resources into PC ports than VR and you're not saying PC support is taking the place of handheld. That's just not how these things work. It's not like Sony Group said to Sony, you only get 2 pieces of hardware you can support.

Sony is supporting VR because it could be a huge segment in gaming in the future. They beat Nintendo motion control with the EyeToy, but they didn't put all their focus on it and what happened? The Wii was a huge success that Sony probably could have done themselves had they been more dedicated, but at the same time look at Microsoft would saw the success of the Wii and decided to go all in with the Kinect and it sank their entire brand maybe for good. You've got be careful.

A new Sony handheld would be relatively low risk and not require a lot of resources. It's kind of a no brainer at this point with the advancements in chipsets just 1 year later. Sony could in theory wait an extra year and move forward with a custom Z1 Extreme and position it even closer to the PS5. There are a lot of things they can do.

Ultimately we'll see what they have in store for the handheld space. I personally hope it isn't a rubbish remote play device.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Maybe we can say that about RoG, but sure that cant be said about the steamdeck. Its user more than ikey would be buying their games from the Steam store, which is probably what Valve expects anyways. Steamdeck is more than ikey ready a subsidized platform.

Do you know how much it cost to make each chip in the Steam Deck? It's just 28$.
 

reksveks

Member
SteamDeck uses Linux and can run a lot of things. It's not a closed ecosystem.
Even MS is now trying to create a version of Windows for it.
It can but it's not typical. Similar to how it's typical that users use adblock or android users use apk.

Business makes decisions off typical usage patterns and not outliers.
 
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Mr.Phoenix

Member
But the ROG Ally is the better comparison here, given that the argument here is that the PS handheld should use the Z1 Exterme chipset and Asus is currently selling it at a rumored price of 700, we'll find out for sure tomorrow one way or another.

If ASUS can sell this at 700, which we all agree is largely driven by profit, because they make nothing off games, I think we can all agree that a PS handheld running the same with less features (i.e. no biometrics or touch panels for mouse movement) or running windows, could come in significantly cheaper?
Oh totally agree that Sony can make a similarly specced handheld that has features that at least let it have PS5 parity, so some form of touchpad (maybe like in the vita) and adaptive triggers.

I also agree that said device, if being sold at a loss or at least break even can cost anywhere between $399 and $599.

What I have a problem with, is that I question the value of such a product. I feel if the goal is to make a device that is basically a PS5 portable at best and PS4 portable at worst, then it makes more sense to just make a remote play-specific handheld. At least that can be sold for under $200. And if done right, a PS+ sub could mean you could stream games to that device even if you don't have a PS5, and whenever you do get a PS5, whatever you claimed or purchased on that device gets carried over to your console.

I feel this would be a great way to get PS back into the handheld space while also pushing their cloud streaming service in a way that doesn't put them at much risk or cause any new complications for them.
 

DonJimbo

Member
Is the qlite not a proper handheld ?
There are still no information leaked
I hope it can play ps4 games and stream ps5 games
 
I think you're just not very consistent here.

You know what else is relative? Failure. The failure of the Vita is not on the same level of the failures of the N64 (yes N64), Gamecube, and Wii U. These failures for Nintendo were of a core segment of their revenue. PSP was a successful side project for Sony, despite the failure of MULTIPLE handhelds to compete in the same space as Nintendo.

The Vita was a failure, but the bigger failure was the PS3. Sony was focusing so much on the PS3 EOL and launch of the PS4 that they weren't able to commit enough resources to Vita. There were other reasons why adoption wasn't as high, but their focus was never on Vita. The PSP was proof that Sony could compete in that space. It sold over 80 million units and was one of the highest-selling units in the industry's history... That alone suggests Sony shouldn't give up just because of one iteration. The PSP already proved Sony's success over the Game Gear, Lync, Ngage, wonderswan, e.t.c.

PSVR has not taken the place of handheld. That just doesn't make sense. They're probably putting more resources into PC ports than VR and you're not saying PC support is taking the place of handheld. That's just not how these things work. It's not like Sony Group said to Sony, you only get 2 pieces of hardware you can support.

Sony is supporting VR because it could be a huge segment in gaming in the future. They beat Nintendo motion control with the EyeToy, but they didn't put all their focus on it and what happened? The Wii was a huge success that Sony probably could have done themselves had they been more dedicated, but at the same time look at Microsoft would saw the success of the Wii and decided to go all in with the Kinect and it sank their entire brand maybe for good. You've got be careful.

A new Sony handheld would be relatively low risk and not require a lot of resources. It's kind of a no brainer at this point with the advancements in chipsets just 1 year later. Sony could in theory wait an extra year and move forward with a custom Z1 Extreme and position it even closer to the PS5. There are a lot of things they can do.

Ultimately we'll see what they have in store for the handheld space. I personally hope it isn't a rubbish remote play device.

I've been pretty consistent with the idea of large enough market failures changing a companies direction. I don't know why GAF has such an issue with the concept when it's pretty much playing out in front of your face at the moment (No new PlayStation dedicated handheld for a decade & No Nintendo home console for the foreseeable future) At the end of the day none of us are privy to any information regarding Sony's handheld plans, so you're free to believe there is a chance and I'm free to believe there's not.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
So you're not irate, just irked at someone having a different opinion to your own. This is a public forum so that's going to be a regular occurrence unfortunately.

The Nintendo point is an interesting one given outside of quirks like the Virtual Boy, they've had at least relative success with everything except the GameCube I guess (which was recycled for the free hit of the Wii) and the big failure of the WiiU, which led them to the Switch (a handheld that you dock), so they have all but left the home console market because of that previous failure given Switch iterations looks to be the future. Market failures always have consequences. Vita failed from the start with sales tailing off within the first month of release, hell it took a full year for it to match the first month of PSP sales in the US. So no Sony handheld since.

Just because the Switch is successful it doesn't always mean other handhelds will be either. Aside from the PSP that did decent numbers, everything else that went up against a Ninty handheld didn't do anywhere near the same numbers, the graveyard is filled with the likes of Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Nokia NGage etc

The PS5 is printing money, but its likely that their PSVR push has also taken the place of a handheld given its relative success, so its not delusional if you look at it logically to assume there wont be another dedicated PlayStation handheld. Life is full of surprises tho 🤷‍♂️

Of course but tone and words chosen can either be "opinion" like or fact like. Even this last post you made rings of "this is how it is" vs opinion. I have no issue with differing viewpoints should they offer the sliver of objectivity.

As to your points. In regards to Nintendo and it's evolution, you've kind of made my point for me. They learned from their mistakes and then released a product that was better - just as Sony would do.
Vita failed for all kinds of other reasons, price, screen size, ergonomics, lack of dual purpose, expensive memory cards, different architecture than consoles, etc, none of which would apply to a new Sony handheld. (or MS)

It's true there is no guarantee that other handhelds would be successful based on the switch's success, but no system ever in the history of video games has a guarantee. Indications point to the market being accepting and large.
Development would be relatively easy and inexpensive due to similar architecture.
Throwing down "Vita failed" so all subsequent handhelds would fail is an argument without legs.

I also think it's unlikely Sony would release a handheld, their pet seems to VR. Doesn't mean the market would not accept a well executed one with open arms.
 

devilNprada

Member
Personally I would rather see an Xbox handheld...
Love the switch but not a fan of Nintendo Games.. Sony games seem like movie games and best played on a big screen..

Would really love a handheld Age of Empires.
 

sachos

Member
No they should not, especially if they intended to run the same games on both the handheld and PS5. It would limit the game design way too much, i want to see what they can squeeze out of an engine designed for those Zen 2 cores and that SSD.
 
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