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[Deft Beck]

It feels like a naked attempt to clone the Steam Deck while misunderstanding the point of the Steam Deck and continuing to let Nintendo eat their lunch in the handheld space.

In the midst of my ongoing hoarding of Linux gaming handhelds, I realize not every game is really designed for portable play, design or UI wise.

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore while Sony and Microsoft chase high fidelity home theater experiences. Trying to transplant that onto a $500+ handheld is going to be an expensive disaster, especially in Xbox's case, where the only real draw is having Game Pass on the go. There are more than the tent pole cinematic experience type games on those platforms, of course, but mostly from indies, who won't be able to fill in the gap entirely.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games. Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo. Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

 

[Shtof]

I agree with you on all points OP.
You forgot one thing though: 5G live service games (halfly joking).

 

[Skifi28]

Nobody wants to make dedicated handhelds anymore, including the players. Supporting them with exclusive/dedicated content is just not feasible these days. It's all about making a single game that works on everything. If the screen is not tiny like on the PS portal, I find that pretty much everything translates well to a handheld experience.

 

[Ozriel]

It feels like a naked attempt to clone the Steam Deck while misunderstanding the point of the Steam Deck and continuing to let Nintendo eat their lunch in the handheld space.

In the midst of my ongoing hoarding of Linux gaming handhelds, I realize not every game is really designed for portable play, design or UI wise.

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore while Sony and Microsoft chase high fidelity home theater experiences. Trying to transplant that onto a $500+ handheld is going to be an expensive disaster, especially in Xbox's case, where the only real draw is having Game Pass on the go. There are more than the tent pole cinematic experience type games on those platforms, of course, but mostly from indies, who won't be able to fill in the gap entirely.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games. Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo. Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

Weird post.
The Steam deck has limited market penetration, and the bulk of the games available for it were never meant to be played handheld.

The ‘point’ of the SteamDeck is to play PC games on the go. Relatively higher fidelity games than the usual Nintendo handheld on the go. That’s all there is to it. Nothing holy or divine about that.

Most casual gamers aren’t getting the Deck either. They’re gravitating to the switch. And nobody really cares that it’s the same game available on home flagship consoles. The entire point is portability, not unique handheld experiences. The main uniquely Nintendo gimmick that people use on the Switch is just the detachable joycons. That’s it.

Make a portable PS5 and it’ll easily outsell the Deck

 

[SweetTooth]

Even Nintendo is not making a dedicated handheld

Also lots of people though Portal will fail, look how that turned out.

My point is, people are clueless including you OP

 

[Deft Beck]

I agree with you on all points OP.
You forgot one thing though: 5G live service games (halfly joking).

Not even the Steam Deck competitors have mobile data connections. It's just not worth the extra expense and trying to sell people on a data plan to play videogames.

Nobody wants to make dedicated handhelds anymore, including the players. Supporting them with exclusive/dedicated content is just not feasible these days. It's all about making a single game that works on everything. If the screen is not tiny like on the PS portal, I find that pretty much everything translates well to a handheld experience.

The Portal is massive and not portable at all. You can take it around with you, in theory, but until recently, you still need to tether it to a PS5. People aren't going to buy a dedicated cloud streaming handheld, either.

 

[Tsaki]

'Why would anyone buy a Portal??'
Turns out to be the best selling accessory of the year. And the most ergonomic of any handheld, ever.
And Steam Deck is really not that popular. Very low numbers for the years it's been out, even though it gets shoved in tens of millions of players' throats daily, every time they open Steam.

 

[Unknown?]

What, suddenly the Switch is masterclass at handheld games? Everyone here will tell you it's a home console!

 

[Skifi28]

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

If anything, I thought the steam decks and ROG allies were the niche market that only few "hardcore" users had. Still, even if a ps5 handheld or whatever doesn't set the world on fire it's fine. They'll probably not sell it at a a loss like a traditional console and since there won't be a need for exclusive games, it's all just profit.

 

[Generic]

A portable Xbox/PS makes a lot of sense since consoles are moving to a full digital era. Being able to play your games in multiple devices with crossprogression enabled is the next step.

 

[Judge Magister]

PS Portal is useless and yet many people bought it, so i don't doubt PS Deck would sell even better.

 

[lh032]

It feels like a naked attempt to clone the Steam Deck while misunderstanding the point of the Steam Deck and continuing to let Nintendo eat their lunch in the handheld space.

In the midst of my ongoing hoarding of Linux gaming handhelds, I realize not every game is really designed for portable play, design or UI wise.

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore while Sony and Microsoft chase high fidelity home theater experiences. Trying to transplant that onto a $500+ handheld is going to be an expensive disaster, especially in Xbox's case, where the only real draw is having Game Pass on the go. There are more than the tent pole cinematic experience type games on those platforms, of course, but mostly from indies, who won't be able to fill in the gap entirely.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games. Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo. Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

because this handheld is target for console owners?

I'm a console gamer, i own a switch and its collecting dust now.
If the price is right ,i will probably get it because i want to play my console games...portable way in higher performance..

And i personally dont think the handheld is considered like PSP or vita for Sony, i think it will serves as an "accessory" beside the console ecosystem (like portal) instead of an actual handheld.

 

[Skifi28]

The Portal is massive and not portable at all. You can take it around with you, in theory, but until recently, you still need to tether it to a PS5. People aren't going to buy a dedicated cloud streaming handheld, either.

The era of true portable handhelds ended with the 3ds and I don't think it's coming back other than the occasional niche third party ones meant for emulation.

 

[Unknown?]

The era of true portable handhelds ended with the 3ds and I don't think it's coming back other than the occasional niche third party ones meant for emulation.

Sadly. Even the switch is too huge to carry around unless you have cargo pants AND it doesn't even have handheld designed games.

PSP had a lot of portable editions of games and people hated it because they just wanted to play full fledged home console games on the go.

 

[crackajack]

I have seen a Switch once in my daily commute, twice a Steamdeck and a couple of times a gaming laptop. But people incl younger kids playing some crap on their phone quite often. Proper handheld gaming is dead. The 2DS was the last handheld I often saw. The 3DS was already a device for at home gaming it seems. My Vita never met another Vita in the wild.

 

[Cornbread78]

Useless? Lol.

 

[Cornbread78]

PS Portal is useless and yet many people bought it, so i don't doubt PS Deck would sell even better.

Lol, awe, look at this cute one.... "useless" lolol

 

[Hugare]

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore

They care so much they've made a hybrid console?

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

You're aware that Nintendo games on the Switch are also meant to be played on a big screen, right? In docked mode?

There's nothing that's mobile centric on the Switch library from Nintendo. This is not a 3DS situation where they've focused on dual screen, stylus pen use or whatever

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games.

That's ... a bold claim. Thinking that such a big and well stablished tech company does not have good designers in it.

They havent made a new handheld after Vita, so we cant say for sure (Portal doesnt count, imo)

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch?

PS Portal is selling almost as much as Xbox consoles. And that thing is shit.

The PS brand alone would carry it. But cant you see the appeal of playing PS4/PS5 games on the go? Using Sony's ecosystem, you profile with synced trophies, cross saving with your console, not to mention games not available on PC. Portable Bloodborne would be enough for it to sell like hotcakes.

If Sony would be able to downscale games easily to it, they wouldnt even need to bother supporting it so much.

 

[Unknown?]

Since all console games are made to scale these days with different modes, wouldn't a handheld that plays console games be easier than the past? Just have it default to lower settings. Just a thought, probably harder said than done.

 

[Shtof]

Not even the Steam Deck competitors have mobile data connections. It's just not worth the extra expense and trying to sell people on a data plan to play videogames.

Why would they sell a data plan? They simply sell the pay-for-online subscription (which tens of millions of people already pay) and buy the bandwidth they need.
As long as its only downloading games and playing online, the data amounts are tiny. Streaming, on the other hand is probably not economically viable.

 

[Shtof]

Since all console games are made to scale these days with different modes, wouldn't a handheld that plays console games be easier than the past? Just have it default to lower settings. Just a thought, probably harder said than done.

Yup. Most games are built to scale to absolute toaster tier laptops.
For Sony, the biggest challenge is actually their own PS5 games.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Sony should just stick with Portal and at most release a Portal Pro with better screen.

It automatically works on PS6 and whatever comes after that as long as Sony supports Remote Play.

 

[Team Andromeda]

It feels like a naked attempt to clone the Steam Deck while misunderstanding the point of the Steam Deck and continuing to let Nintendo eat their lunch in the handheld space.

In the midst of my ongoing hoarding of Linux gaming handhelds, I realize not every game is really designed for portable play, design or UI wise.

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore while Sony and Microsoft chase high fidelity home theater experiences. Trying to transplant that onto a $500+ handheld is going to be an expensive disaster, especially in Xbox's case, where the only real draw is having Game Pass on the go. There are more than the tent pole cinematic experience type games on those platforms, of course, but mostly from indies, who won't be able to fill in the gap entirely.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games. Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo. Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

For someone who claims they hoard Linux gaming handhelds, I love how miss the point of Steam and that so many of its games aren't handheld-designed games at all and PC games scaled back

So keep it coming Nintendboy

 

[ReBurn]

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline.

What makes a handheld game different from a non-handheld game? What are the design considerations?

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Hot takes coming in hot... and it's not even Friday yet.

 

[Fbh]

Idk, it makes sense to me.
It circumvents one of the big issue of making a handheld in the current market, in that you wouldn't need to dilute your dev force by having them make different games to support your home console and your handheld. You also don't have to go beg third parties to support it.
If it's a proper portable Ps5/SX that natively works with every ps5/SX game you are launching with a massive catalogue of appealing titles, you assure continued support from first and third party into the foreseeable future, and you can entice people who are invested in your ecosystem by telling them the dozens or hundreds of games they own on PS5/SX are all available at no extra cost on these new handhelds.

I mean it's part of the appeal of the Steamdeck too. Sure the customization, emulation and all of that is nice but a big part of the appeal is that out of the box a big chunk of your Steam games just work with it. People didn't have to go buy a separate version of Elden Ring or Vampire Survivors, and when a new hit Steam game like Palworld or Balatro launches you aren't left crossing your fingers that it gets a port.

 

[jm89]

Who wants the portal when we have steamdeck and switch?

How'd that turned out?

 

[Kabelly]

"home console games on the go" is the very reason switch is successful. "handheld" type games still exist and the only reason they were the default before was because of hardware limitations. you still have lots of indies and smaller games that can easily be classified as a handheld centric game. Balatro, Brothership, Pizza Tower, that new Zelda game, Animal Crossing etc etc. Except they can also be played on the big screen too.

Handhelds were always going to get more powerful and the result is closing the gap between homeconsole and handheld. Games are so scaleable nowadays.

There's a reason Nintendo consolidated their two hardware lines into one.

It's like whining about people watching home movies on their iphone. Playing Sony's biggest games in a portable factor is appealing even if you don't think so.

 

[Bojji]

Both Sony and MS will most likely fail chasing Nintendo here. Sony already tried in 2011.

 

[Unknown?]

What makes a handheld game different from a non-handheld game? What are the design considerations?

When we had games made for handheld, people just complained and called them gimped. It usually entails pick up and play with little time consuming elements, more like an arcade/lite edition of a home console game.

 

[Cyborg]

As an adult you should not be this involved what multi billion companies want or do Focus is they key and if they want to try it again to bring a (standard) console and a handheld and develop games for both they will fail.

 

[killatopak]

To be quite honest, the only reason I wouldn’t like a PS5 or Xbox Series portable is that a BD drive would definitely not fit there. My physical library won’t be of use.

 

[Represent.]

I agree.

Will also guarantee that next gen is the smallest leap in power ever. Devs will be optimizing for a fucknig handheld.

You thought Series S was limiting.. just wait.

 

[DaleinCalgary]

It wasn't that hard

 

[yurinka]

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline.

Controls and UI are different for PC, home consoles, portable console and mobile. Regarding business model (which also affects the design) GaaS is the most popular in all platforms in terms of userbase and revenue. In case of mobile, particularly the F2P.

Other than that and considering the difference of horsepower for each device, the design is pretty much the same for all platforms. In the past portable games were designed for short gameplay sessions, particularly the mobile ones, but no longer is the case since over a decade ago because devs found out that longer gameplay sessions means higher revenue.

At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Not true, over 90% of mobile gaming players don't pay anything. And the ones who pay, on average mobile gamers pay less on games per year than a console or PC gamer. Mobile gaming gets played and makes way more money than PC and console because it is affordable to way more people around the world.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games.

Sony sold almost 100M portable consoles, they may know a thing or two about it. Regarding to put PC games on a potential future PS/Xbox console, they only have to require gamepad controls and an accesibility option to put texts of a ceratin minimum size for the UI. This is all they need to adapt.

Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo.

Gio Corsi was just one person of the 3rd party relations team at Sony, the teams go get games signed. In his case he particularly worked on get Japan-only games released and localized in the west and Vita ports.

Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Same as the PC handhelds, Switch or the mobile gaming case. There are these options, or they could also put a 4G/5G card in the device as phones do.

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch?

The PS userbase has way over 100M monthly active users, Steamdeck only sold around 3.4M units as of now.

I'm pretty sure many of them would prefer to get a Sony handheld and to use there their PSN game library and to have access to tons of popular AAA games not available on Switch, or are there but massively downgraded. Plus they could use it for Remote Play and PS cloud gaming, like a next gen PS Player.

You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

Casual fans play mobile phone games, they don't normally buy portable consoles or PC handhelds.

The average Switch owner is a >30 years old male that is a Nintendo fan since many years ago, or people who want to play indie games on the go. The typical Steamdeck owner is a >30 years old male that is a Steam user since several years ago and wants to play their Steam games on the go. The average PS user is also a >30 years old male who is a PS user since many years ago. PS has a pretty low overlap between the three platforms (around 20% with each as I remember as of a few years ago).

So a PS portable should target the average PS player who wants to play their PS games on the go. The goal of their handheld must be -like PS portal is successfully doing according to Sony- to boost playtime hours on PSN, which means to increase the revenue and sales. A complement to their home console to boost the ecosystem, that would also include their PC games and cloud (plus in the future their mobile games too). Not trying to outsell Switch or to have a second platform that requires to program its dedicated games and ports.

P.S: I worked making mobile and PC casual games for over a decade, some of them having over 50M users, or over 3M daily active users.

 

[Shtof]

"home console games on the go" is the very reason switch is successful. "handheld" type games still exist and the only reason they were the default before was because of hardware limitations. you still have lots of indies and smaller games that can easily be classified as a handheld centric game. Balatro, Brothership, Pizza Tower, that new Zelda game, Animal Crossing etc etc. Except they can also be played on the big screen too.

Handhelds were always going to get more powerful and the result is closing the gap between homeconsole and handheld. Games are so scaleable nowadays.

There's a reason Nintendo consolidated their two hardware lines into one.

It's like whining about people watching home movies on their iphone. Playing Sony's biggest games in a portable factor is appealing even if you don't think so.

Small handhelds were outcompeted by phones. As such, handheld type games had no reason to exist any longer.

 

[jm89]

Both Sony and MS will most likely fail chasing Nintendo here. Sony already tried in 2011.

Sony don't really need to chase nintendo and imo they aren't with this device really.

It's more of an handheld option, their main hardware seller will be ps6.

 

[SportsFan581]

Make a portable PS5 and it’ll easily outsell the Deck

Agreed. I think Sony missed an opportunity to release a PS4 portable around the launch window of the PS5. The device would have still had a few years left of getting the big releases, plus access to the full PS4 catalog. You've got to think it could have done well. That would be a little before the Steam Deck, but with Sony's experience and buying power they may have made it work in 2020.

 

[ReBurn]

When we had games made for handheld, people just complained and called them gimped. It usually entails pick up and play with little time consuming elements, more like an arcade/lite edition of a home console game.

That's interesting because I have purchased a ton of pick up and play games for my PS5, like the Atari Recharged games when the collection went on sale for $3 each. Yars Recharged and Tetris Effect: Connected are fun to play sitting on the couch in front of the TV as well as on the Portal laying in bed. It didn't require a different design to work well in each setting.

In the past handheld games were gimped because of restrictions directly related to the form factor and how much power could be packed in for the size. These days they can pack a lower-end PC spec with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD into a handheld form factor. So there's less need to design around the limitations.

 

[Bojji]

Sony don't really need to chase nintendo and imo they aren't with this device really.

It's more of an handheld option, their main hardware seller will be ps6.

Yeah but they did the same with Vita, their main focus was still PS3 and upcoming PS4. While vita was left with no software and died.

They already don't make a lot of games on PS5 and even less on VR. Add another platform and release what on it?

 

[sncvsrtoip]

Yeah cant see next portable playstation not being a failure. Sony bearly has enough studios to make games for base ps5 as development takes more and more time. And now some resources has to be spend on portable machine, just bad idea.

 

[asdasdasdbb]

Yeah cant see next portable playstation not being a failure. Sony bearly has enough studios to make games for base ps5 as development takes more and more time. And now some resources has to be spend on portable machine, just bad idea.

The idea is that the portable will play the same games as the main console.

 

[jm89]

Yeah but they did the same with Vita, their main focus was still PS3 and upcoming PS4. While vita was left with no software and died.

They already don't make a lot of games on PS5 and even less on VR. Add another platform and release what on it?

I highly doubt they do the same thing they did with the vita and have seperate libraries.

It will be like steamdeck i'd think, up to the developers to to scale down for the handheld.

Sony studios or nixxes already get some of their games steamdeck verified so it'd be the same.

If some devs don't want to scale down, remote play and cloud steaming will always be an option.

 

[hououinkyouma00]

It feels like a naked attempt to clone the Steam Deck while misunderstanding the point of the Steam Deck and continuing to let Nintendo eat their lunch in the handheld space.

In the midst of my ongoing hoarding of Linux gaming handhelds, I realize not every game is really designed for portable play, design or UI wise.

Designing a handheld game is becoming a lost art, separate from "mobile game" design which is an entirely different, disgusting discipline. At some point mobile games moved away from creative people figuring out the iPhone and iPad to suits trying to hoover money out of lonely, rich addicts.

Anyway, only Nintendo really cares about handheld gaming design anymore while Sony and Microsoft chase high fidelity home theater experiences. Trying to transplant that onto a $500+ handheld is going to be an expensive disaster, especially in Xbox's case, where the only real draw is having Game Pass on the go. There are more than the tent pole cinematic experience type games on those platforms, of course, but mostly from indies, who won't be able to fill in the gap entirely.

Nobody at Sony or Microsoft proper knows how to make dedicated handheld games. Gio Corsi, the former champion of the Vita, went to Nintendo. Speaking of Sony, if they keep chasing service games, then how are you going to play those on the go? Tether your phone? Play on shitty public WiFi?

Overall, why would you buy such a pricey handheld when the target audience probably already has a Steam Deck and/or a Switch? You're pricing out the casual players who make up most of the audience by having it play the same level of games as the main console. This is only going to be for diehard brand fans, not the broad general public, just like the Series X and the PS5 Pro.

What do you think the point of Steam Deck was?

Also that's sort of bold to say that nobody knows how to make dedicated handheld games. I'm sure you know all of them personally and know their qualifications, right? Gio Corsi wasn't the only person that worked with the Vita you know. Also a very very small number of games on Steam are made for a portable experience so how is the Deck or Ally any different. Plus on the non-Steam Deck side of things literally nothing about Windows is mobile friendly and as far as I can tell none of them have made their own software that is worth a damn.

Also a portable PS would simply play PS games. There isn't much expertise needed besides a little extra care to make sure HUDs and text are readable.

Not even the Steam Deck competitors have mobile data connections. It's just not worth the extra expense and trying to sell people on a data plan to play videogames.



The Portal is massive and not portable at all. You can take it around with you, in theory, but until recently, you still need to tether it to a PS5. People aren't going to buy a dedicated cloud streaming handheld, either.

The Portal may be huge but there are also PC handhelds that are huge like that disgusting looking Lenovo handheld (I also think the Portal is hideous) but the thing about the Portal is it's more comfortable then any of those PC handhelds because of it's design. It's just as "portable" as the PC handhelds.

Also people ignore how well the Portal sells, and if a half assed "test product" sells that well then a dedicated PS handheld definitely will sell and I think it would sell more then the Steam Deck as well.

I don't have much to say about an Xbox handheld outside of the only option for them realistically is to just make a Xbox branded PC handheld and design a front end.

 

[Astray]

Weird post.
The Steam deck has limited market penetration, and the bulk of the games available for it were never meant to be played handheld.

The ‘point’ of the SteamDeck is to play PC games on the go. Relatively higher fidelity games than the usual Nintendo handheld on the go. That’s all there is to it. Nothing holy or divine about that.

Most casual gamers aren’t getting the Deck either. They’re gravitating to the switch. And nobody really cares that it’s the same game available on home flagship consoles. The entire point is portability, not unique handheld experiences. The main uniquely Nintendo gimmick that people use on the Switch is just the detachable joycons. That’s it.

Make a portable PS5 and it’ll easily outsell the Deck

If Playstation and Microsoft get a combined %15-30 of the handheld market in their 1st gen of these handhelds then that will likely be considered a grand success.

The idea that you have to take the entire market in a single stroke is faulty to begin with.

Both Sony and MS will most likely fail chasing Nintendo here. Sony already tried in 2011.

There are a lot of factors that helped Nintendo with their Switch 1 launch that are likely not repeating again (A raft of great Wii U exclusives that were effectively new and could be remastered, brand new audience of lapsed fans and new kids ,complete abandonment of the handheld space etc). These things might not repeat again.

Sony and MS both have varying levels of experience in doing handheld (Sony had the PSP, Microsoft has been cooperating with OEMs on handhelds for a while). This isn't rocket science.

Let's not forget that it was these two companies in particular that forced Nintendo to retreat to focusing entirely on handhelds to begin with.

Yeah but they did the same with Vita, their main focus was still PS3 and upcoming PS4. While vita was left with no software and died.

Vita was left without software because the Xbone/PS4 war was still going on in earnest, a loss of attention or resources there would have probably sunk Sony, it was genuinely a tightrope situation back there.

Even Nintendo is not making a dedicated handheld

The Switch Lite exists, it's basically a switch without joycons that can only be played portably. There will likely be a Switch Lite 2 as well.

 

[Sebastian1295]

I'm going to be completely honest and say that no one really cares about the steamdeck at all besides an extreme minority of gamers/hardcore pc guys. I think the last time valve reported on the sales of the steamdeck they said it has sold 'multiple millions of sales' aka not even a pimple on the ass of the switch or what a portable from playstation or xbox will sell.

Valve says it has sold “multiple millions” of Steam Decks

The handheld gaming PC has proven to be a big hit for Valve.

www.theverge.com

 

[ArtHands]

If it really exist the switch successor will most likely outsell by a very huge margin again.

 

[family_guy]

It's just a response to where the market is going. They aren't selling traditional consoles at the rate they used to, younger generations want things to be more portable, many of them don't even own TVs. The top selling and most popular games aren't necessarily the best looking games. Both Sony and MS will have a hard time convincing most people to buy a next gen Xbox and PS6, especially when devs for the most part aren't even maxing out current gen and several are still supporting 12 year old last gen hardware. They won't be able to justify making next gen exclusives until 2030+.

As far as not knowing how to design handheld games specifically, well does Nintendo really do that? I don't think so, not since the 3DS, and cynically speaking not really since the DS. Their Switch games mostly have been iterations of games they were making on Gamecube and Wii U. You barely get the uniqueness that was prevalent during the DS generation. At best they incorporate some gyro functions into their games that Sony's had in their controllers for almost 20 years.

 

[AJUMP23]

It definitely kills a portable system is you need the cloud to utilize it.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

Since all console games are made to scale these days with different modes, wouldn't a handheld that plays console games be easier than the past? Just have it default to lower settings. Just a thought, probably harder said than done.

We already have Devs complaining about the series s holding then back. Imagine owning a ps6 and having it kneecapped by a portal ps.

This scale narrative only popped up when people were down playing the impact the series s would have.