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Bloomberg: Sony Working on New Handheld Console

Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Sony is in the early stages of developing a portable console that plays PlayStation 5 games. The company's aim with this console would be to "expand PlayStation's reach" and rival Nintendo in the portable gaming market. According to the report, Sony's portable device is "likely years away from launch," and the company could still decide against releasing such a product.

In a similar story, Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Microsoft's Phil Spencer has stated that the company is also working on a handheld console for its Xbox hardware.

Sony released PlayStation Portal (pictured right), the first remote play dedicated handheld device for PS5, in November 2023 for US$199.99. The system was originally intended to stand alone from PS5.

The PlayStation Portal features an 8-inch LCD screen that supports 1080p resolution at 60fps. The device connects remotely to PS5 over Wi-Fi. It can play supported games installed on the console, but it cannot play PSVR2 games that require the headset or games that are streaming through PlayStation Plus Premium's cloud. The PlayStation Portal includes features from the DualSense controller, including adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.

Sony Interactive Entertainment released the PlayStation 5 Pro console on November 7.

The PS5 console has surpassed 50 million in sales as of December 2023.

As of July 2021, Sony had sold over 10 million units of the PS5 worldwide since its launch, making the PS5 Sony's fastest-selling console. Sony had sold over 20 million units of the PS5 worldwide as of June 2022. The PS5 had crossed 30 million units in sales in January 2023, and then crossed the 40 million mark in July 2023.

The PS5 launched in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea on November 12, 2020. The console launched in most of the rest of the world on November 19, 2020. The PS5 retailed for US$499.99, and the PS5 Digital Edition (which does not include an optical disc drive) retailed for US$399.99. The PS5 released a new, smaller model intended to replace the old model throughout November to early December 2023 in various territories, and the new Digital Edition rose in price to US$449.99.

The company launched PlayStation VR2, the new virtual reality (VR) system for PS5, in February 2023.

Source: Bloomberg (Takashi Mochizuki, Debby Wu, link 2, Dina Bass) via Gematsu, IGN