The Playstation Portal Has Arrived! – But To What Purpose?

In 2022 there were leaked photos of what was rumored at the time to be a Playstation tablet. A lot of hype was garnered by that photo, but no one knew just how valid this rumor actually was. Let’s not forget, this is the internet after all. About a month ago Sony officially debuted what is being called the Playstation Portal.

The Playstation Portal is a fantastic idea. Imagine for just a moment being able to play The Last of Us or Spider-Man wherever you go. Playstation has a long history of pioneering portable gaming with their PSP (Playstation Portable) systems. The Portal is an absolute no brainer for the company, serving as a successor to the PSP Vita and also attracting new users.

More good news, the specs for the Portal have been released and they look very good. The Portal will come in at about sixteen inches, and is capable of 4K at 60 FPS. It will also be capable of haptic feedback, another great feature. Very good numbers. However there is just one small hitch, no memory. That’s right there is no memory storage whatsoever with the Portal, because you cannot download games.

Everything that makes the Portal such a great idea comes to a grinding halt here. The Portal does not have any internal memory because the Portal was never designed to be a portable Playstation. The only way the device works is by functioning as a conduit for PS Remote Play, a function that allows the user to stream games from their Playstation to an external device like an iPad or laptop. In order to use said feature you have to have a Playstation console running, and you can never get more than about one hundred feet away.

This means that the Portal is more of an accessory for the PS5 rather than be a stand-alone product. Honestly the Portal is actually superfluous. Like I mentioned earlier, PS Remote Play has been used for a while now. You can already stream games to compatible devices. Given that it requires the user to be tethered to their Playstation one would wonder why not just play off the Playstation?

The Playstation Portal has no internal functionality whatsoever. Meaning that if I want to use the tablet for anything other than streaming PS5 games, then you’ll be disappointed. It would make better sense to maybe buy a good laptop so you would at least get more functionality.

Another issue the Portal has is that only certain games will be compatible. The latest Playstation games will be compatible, which is good, but if you wanted to play any PS4 or PS3 titles, you are stuck. This will only work with the very latest titles. Not only do you have limited functionality, but you also have limited game titles.

Overall the Playstation Portal is an interesting concept that unfortunately cripples itself. Pricing has been announced at $200, so it is priced competitively at least. There has been no word on any upgraded models, so for now it appears this is all we’ll getting. The Portal is powerful, but suffers from being irrelevant. Currently there is no existing market for such a product.