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I have mixed thoughts about PlayStation Portal.

I think the hardware looks neat and makes sense for around-the-house more than on-the-go. Sony knows how to do inputs, so grafting a DualSense to a small tablet is not the worst idea for a handheld gaming device!

Cassidy James Blaede

But… Sony goes out of the way to say it is *only for Remote Play from a PS5.* I get why that’s the focus to start (make the primary use really good!), but I still wonder if they have plans to ship a PS Store app and let you download games.

PS1, PS2, PSP, maybe even Vita games would be sick on it—they’ve brought a LOT of those titles to the PS5 as downloads instead of only via streaming as before, and that would actually make this a decent retro gaming handheld.

They also go out of their way to say it’s *not* compatible with PlayStation Plus streaming, even when those games are streaming to the linked PS5 (likely due to bidirectional bandwidth issues). But streaming *directly from PlayStation Plus* seems like such an obvious reason for this handheld to exist! Surely they’re working on that?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Stadia was good, actually. 😉 And I think Sony is closest to being able to replicate it.

My experience with PS Remote Play on Android has been less than stellar. That’s why I’m MOST cautious about this device, anyway—it’s one thing if it’s a free gimmick I can use to wrap up a quest on my tablet while my wife watches TV, but a $200 dedicated device?

Before you say it’s my Wi-Fi, I used Stadia *exclusively* as my console for a year. Remote Play hasn’t held a candle to that experience, even when on the very same network with my PS5 on Ethernet.

Oh, and… it’s hard to justify this over something else that I can use on a bus, train, plane, etc. I get that it has a place in the home as a local device, but it just seems like such a bummer to not have *any* offline capability whatsoever.

I would love to use my phone *less*, and a portable console could help with that. As it stands, I might as well just use my phone and a controller mount for a similar experience at home, and a better experience on the go.

@cassidy Remote play is terrible for anyone who plays games with any precision. I got it working on my Steam Deck on a super-fast mesh network. I've tried it on my Studio Display (because: no HDMI in) in the same room. Both have been noticeably laggy.

The idea that I'd be away from home and gaming via a Portal connection to my PS5 is, quite frankly, laughable.

@dajb yuuup. I’ve tried it remotely with PS Remote Play and it *worked* technically, but was awful.

I know I’m a broken record, but this is where Stadia blew me away. Most of the time I literally couldn’t tell it wasn’t running on the device—except I would get PS5 graphics on my phone or Chromecast. :)

They were so far ahead of everyone else experience-wise. I am guessing those YouTube local data centers had something to do with it, but even so, it was better than gaming on my *local* network!

@cassidy Agreed, I was fully bought in to Stadia. Playing Sniper Elite 4 in super-high def was amazing, as was the ability to play it on any device.

Xbox Game Cloud is *OK* but nothing compared to Stadia when it was working well. At least Google did the right thing and refunded everyone. I've got a couple of very good Bluetooth controllers now to use with my Steam Deck when I plug it into my TV! 🙌

@dajb @cassidy I don’t know about Stadia because I didn’t have it but this device doesn’t even stream, it’s just a 200 dollars appendix to your PS5 and it doesn’t work if someone else is playing meanwhile. About that kind of portability my Nintendo Switch remains unparalleled I’d say

@cassidy What about the Steamdeck? I know it's not super cheap but it's AMAZING and runs Arch Linux with KDE!

@feoh I mean, yeah, I can spend 3× as much for that and then also have to re-purchase all my games, if they are even available on Steam. 😅

I get the allure of the Steam Deck, it just seems like a missed opportunity to leverage the PS library on the PS Portal.

@cassidy @feoh FWIW: The Steam Deck can stream from a PS5 (and PS4) with Chiaki. There's even a Deck optimized version on Flathub called Chiaki4Deck. It works extremely well and supports touchpads, gyro, and more.

flathub.org/apps/io.github.str

(It can also stream from Steam by default, XBox with xbPlay, and computers in general with Moonlight or Sunshine.)

Flathub - Apps for LinuxInstall Chiaki4deck on Linux | FlathubFree and Open Source Client for PlayStation Remote Play modified for Steam Deck

@garrett @feoh I've used this on my laptop and the setup was a huge pain, and then the end result was a pixelated, laggy experience. 😬

@cassidy @feoh I copied my config over from my laptop and that worked.

As for the laggy mess, it really depends on your network. It works best if one of the devices (ideally the PS5) is on your wired network.

If you're having that issue with Chiaki, you'll likely have it with the new thing from Sony too. It was the same for the Vita & Android App.

I had both on wireless and it was a mess, even with the Vita. After switching the PS4 (at the time) to wired, it resolved things.

@garrett @feoh yeah that's kind of my point with this whole PlayStation Portal thing, and why I'm bummed it is a Remote Play only device: my experience has just been awful with it, even with the PS5 wired and other things working well over my local network. And again, I point to Stadia which worked extremely well on the exact same network even with Wi-Fi on my phone or Chromecast.

Maybe my LAN just hates Sony for some reason, but it really dampens my excitement for what looks like nice hardware

@cassidy @garrett No, it's a sincerely hard problem, and even Xbox cloud gaming which as I've said works fine, only works fine under IDEAL conditions. If your bandwidth isn't great, or if your device isn't fast enough - it stinks :)

@cassidy @feoh It's probably related to your internal network having to handle both sides of the stream, whereas with Stadia, it only had to handle you being the endpoint. (Yeah, there was the controller's connection to Stadia, but that's minimal bandwidth versus pushing video around.)

Is your wireless 5 GHz or 2.4 GHz? (I had streaming issues on 2.4, but 5 worked fine. However, 5 doesn't go through walls as well.) How's your signal strength? Is the connection to the router or via repeaters?

@garrett 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz, switching to whatever’s needed. PS5 is hardwired, laptop or phone connected wirelessly over 5GHz to the router with a strong signal.

Sometimes it works fine, but a lot of the time it's just extremely compressed and laggy. Enough to where I don't even try playing anything that requires faster reflexes and forget about anything online/competitive.

I have a mesh network, but am typically close to and connected with a strong signal to the main router.

@garrett I played some LEGO Star Wars on my Pixel Tablet last night and it did actually work better than it ever has before, so maybe they’re actively improving things in anticipation of the PlayStation Portal? There’s hope…

And yet, I want to play PS2 games on it on a plane lol

@cassidy Is there a way to force it to 5 GHz? Like a specific AP that's only 5 GHz? Or make the mesh only serve 5 GHz at the router and 2.4 GHz at the endpoints?

(I do both of those here.)

There's a huge difference between 5 GHz & 2.4 GHz for game streaming, even with the streaming source wired, as you definitely need the bandwidth; 2.4 isn't quite good enough.

I'm wondering how many people will return the new Sony Portal because it won't work with their home networks. 🫣

@garrett I have Nest Wifi explicitly because I do not want to have to think about these things. And I have not had to think about it at all when using anything other than PS Remote Play in the past. :)

But in checking, it definitely favors 5 GHz when I’m anywhere near the router. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my laptop, tablet, or phone on anything but 5 GHz.

@cassidy @feoh Agreed!

I waited for a new Sony console for years and just went all-in on the Steam Deck and PC gaming (on Linux, specifically Silverblue) when Sony didn't have a new handheld and we couldn't get a PS5 for two years after release.

(My partner finally snagged a PS5 and gave it to me for my birthday 364 days ago. But I haven't played it much as a result of Steam sales having huge discounts, Heroic with GOG & Epic, past bundles I bought, Sony porting most games to PC, etc.)

@cassidy @garrett Sorry to hear. #unhelpful but Xbox cloud gaming works fairly well actually.

@cassidy @feoh Not a suggestion (different things work for different people!), but my husband loves his Steam Deck. He was in the first few minutes of preorders, very excited for it, and he's not been disappointed.

It's completely replaced his aging desktop, with no plans to get a new one. Plays non-Steam Windows games well, too.

But we both already had big Steam libraries, so it was a natural device evolution for him. He's always been mostly Nintendo + PC — and has always loved his portables.

@feoh @cassidy The reconditioned SteamDeck isn't that expensive. 64GB model with a decently sized SD card is quite compelling.

@popey @cassidy It's a truly amazing device. I adore mine, both in that it's a truly friction free handheld PC gaming experience *AND* in that it's an honest to god convergence device and runs KDE desktop like a rockstar. Layer in Emudeck to sate my 80s arcade fiction and you have gaming satyr bliss :)

@popey yeah I mean I’ve considered it, but it’s still 160% the cost of a brand new PlayStation Portal if you can even get them while they’re in stock… I’m decently happy with my tablet and a controller for the time being. It’s not that much less portable than a Steam Deck, and I already have it.

I think over all I’m just bummed the PlayStation Portal won’t support all my old PlayStation games in my library; it seems like such an obvious use case for it.

@cassidy @popey The PlayStation Portal feels like Sony is — for some reason — trying to play catch-up to the Nintendo Wii U (which famously didn't sell well).

@cassidy Yeah, the SteamDeck is a completely different class of device though. Aside from "just" being a PC, it's a ludicrously capable emulation machine. I waved one under my (non-tech hairdresser) brother at the weekend when it was running Crash Bandicoot in an emulator. His face was quite the picture, and he's already looking to buy one himself. I get the pricing, and re-buying are a problem for you though.

@cassidy I'm surprised Sony's sounds so poor.

We've been using Steam's in-home streaming since it was in beta, and it was really smooth even then. Good video quality, low latency (<12ms), and this was 1080p between a Win host with a used upper-mid tier AMD GPU, and a client running Ubuntu on a mediocre 7 yr old Dell. They were both wired, but we had good luck with the Steam Link on WiFi later, too.

I would think Sony should be able to match that experience almost a decade later. Weird.

@danep to be fair, my most recent experience was actually playable—I did a bit of LEGO Star Wars and Horizon Forbidden West, and was able to kill some time. I’ll have to keep checking it out—maybe they fixed their issues in anticipation of this device? 🤷

@cassidy to me the only one able to replicate Stadia is Xbox with Game Pass and cloud streaming.

I’m playing a lot of ps5 streaming and it was a little bit cumbersome on Windows, on Linux it doesn’t work at all unless you have a Win VM (thanks Virtualbox for that)

And the thing that irks me the most is this: Portal can’t stream games and can be used only for remote play. It’s a joke. My use case is @Killbilla constantly stealing my PS5 so I can’t play remotely, I have to resort to streaming 😂

@dottorblaster ha yeah fair point, can’t remote play if someone’s playing the PS5. :)

I just feel like this HAS to be a planned update for PlayStation Portal, right?? It’s just too obvious. Buuut never buy hardware based on future promises—and especially based on future hopes. 😅

@cassidy absolutely! i just hope they have something in mind because they are just selling a piece of hardware that does the same thing the Steam Deck does with an app

Soooooouh…

I really can’t understand where are they heading with all this Remote Play and Cloud Streaming stuff. It looks like they are run by two different companies, they have different apps (Remote Play VS Playstation Plus), different hardware, different mechanics. Like they were two competing business units