‘A new PlayStation Portable would be so much better than a PS6’-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

PlayStation Portal – what comes next? (Sony)

A reader is excited by rumours of Sony planning to make a new PlayStation Portable and argues that handhelds are the future of the industry.

I expect in the coming months, especially once we get into next year, we’ll be hearing a lot about the next gen Xbox and the PlayStation 6. I keep forgetting that Microsoft has actually announced their new hardware, even if they haven’t said anything about it, but then their messaging hasn’t exactly been clear lately.

The rumours have it that the new Xbox is a portable or hybrid console, inspired by the Switch and Steam Deck. That certainly doesn’t seem much of a stretch, as Phil Spencer has been hinting about it constantly, so the only real question is whether there’ll be other models as well.

I don’t think anything substantial has been rumoured about the PlayStation 6 yet but what has excited me much more than the thought of yet another big plastic box under the TV is the rumour that Sony is making a new portable, following the unexpected success of the PlayStation Portal.

I would love if this were true. I’ve always enjoyed portable consoles, for both the convenience and freedom and also the fact that they tend to encourage games that you can pick up and play more easily, without having to settle in for a five hour long grind just to make any progress.

If the rumours are true, I don’t know if Sony would be thinking of a traditional portable or a hybrid but I can’t imagine it’d be a separate format. Not even Nintendo does that anymore, so whatever it is must be able to run at least PlayStation 4 games natively. Which I think sounds like a very exciting thing.

I think one of the big problems that Sony, and Microsoft, have got into recently is that everything has to be a 200+ hour epic with photorealistic graphics and all the trimmings. But we all know those aren’t necessarily the best or most popular games.

We live in a world where Minecraft is the most popular game ever and Balatro is the best game of the year. Heck, even GTA 5 is basically a PlayStation 3 game.

What a new portable PlayStation would do is not only make gaming more convenient, but it would allow smaller developers, especially Japanese ones, to make lower budget AA games without it looking bad on the big screen.

This is something Nintendo has benefited from all generation and yet I don’t think Microsoft and Sony even recognise it as something they’re missing out on. Indie games are great but there’s a much wider range between that and a AAA game than they seem to realise.

The PlayStation 5 has been such a disappointing console on so many levels, but the lack of games recently is masking some of them, such as the lack of new IP and the failure to tackle rising game costs.

All of this would be easier with a portable console, and it would also mean that the machine itself was exciting again. The PlayStation 5 is such an ugly slab of plastic, and its graphics aren’t noticeably better than the previous one, but a portable console coming next would be such a welcome change of pace, for me at least.

If Sony hasn’t learned by this point, that graphics are way down the list of priorities for most people then I don’t know what hope there is for them. I think it’s very clear that portable gaming is the future of the industry and if the rumours are true then PlayStation will be a big part of that.

By reader Paulie

If there is a new console it probably won’t be called the PS Vita 2 (Sony)

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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