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The story
According to reports carried by overseas media, Sony is said to be developing a new PlayStation handheld console, with a launch planned for late 2027 — the same timeframe as the PS6. It reportedly aims to support three generations of software (PS4, PS5, and PS6), and unlike the PlayStation Portal, which was merely a remote-play device, this new handheld is expected to run games on its own, without needing to stream from another console. On 5ch’s gaming industry (“Geha”) board, the discussion leaned less toward simple pros and cons and more toward skepticism, with users voicing concerns about being forced to pay for both a home console and a handheld at the same time, doubts over whether three-generation compatibility is truly achievable, and caution about taking an unconfirmed leak at face value in the first place.
New information has emerged regarding the new PlayStation handheld that Sony is reportedly developing, suggesting the company is aiming for a late 2027 release. Rather than being a remote-play-only device like the PlayStation Portal, it’s believed to be a full-fledged handheld gaming console capable of running games entirely on its own.
Launching alongside the PS6?
As for timing, reports indicate that the new PlayStation handheld and the PS6 will launch simultaneously in late 2027.
Source: sumahodigest.com / Original article here
What people said
Spreading a rumor like this will just make people hold off buying even more, won't it
Who's gonna buy a brand-new console just to replay old-gen games they've already worn out?
If backward compatibility alone could win the console war, Xbox would be selling way better than it is — so, yeah, draw your own conclusions
It'd appeal to people who heard a game was great but never bought the console for it, but in today's multiplatform era it feels kind of pointless
For PlayStation, compatibility actually works against them.
Sony never drops support for the old generation, so third parties keep putting out PS4 games even this year, which leads to people asking 'do I even need a PS5?'
If PS6 supports both PS4 and PS5, then people will just start asking 'do I even need a PS6?' instead
What's the total price tag gonna be?
Don't dig up something that already died with the Vita
Compatibility with PS4 and later is nothing but a waste of storage
it just shows they still haven't figured out internally why the Vita bombed so hard
Copying Nintendo after the fact is the one thing they're good at
Wouldn't an announcement like that only sway guys in their 40s and up?
and launching a home console and a handheld together is the agonized compromise they landed on.
It'll probably fuel plenty of online trash-talk, though — people claiming PlayStation wins on both the home-console and handheld front.
And in the end, it'll just remind the general public all over again how good the value is on a Switch, which gives you both in one device.
Just buy a converter, no?
Either way, aren't they setting the bar way too high?
Get ready for six months of self-proclaimed 'leakers' keeping the console-war forums fired up
It'd make sense if they had exclusives like Nintendo does,
but if the games are on PC anyway, nobody cares whether they're backward compatible or not
As hardware gets more powerful, new games take longer to make, so without backward compatibility you'd be stuck in a software drought for a while
Isn't this just a worse Steam Machine and Steam Deck combined?
I think they're just cooking up a vague leak so they can later say 'people were only holding off buying because of this rumor!'
There's no way they're releasing a handheld that costs over 200,000 yen (roughly $1,300)…
Probably just trying to distract from all the bad news lately.
Though it doesn't look like it's working at all
Why are these people making a fuss over 'a handheld is coming, a handheld is coming' when it's already possible?
Isn't it because it's not properly realized yet that they still want it?
Background and Points of Contention
The source for this story is sumahodigest.com, an overseas leak-aggregation site — this is not an official Sony announcement. There’s history feeding the skepticism here: about six months before its own launch, the PlayStation Portal was reportedly redesigned from a device meant to run games on its own into a remote-play-only unit that just streams video to phones and the like (see comment #38), and that reversal is why the thread swings between hoping ‘maybe this time it’s a real handheld’ and suspecting ‘this is just another leak running away with itself.’ The debate centers on two main points: (1) the cost burden — launching alongside the PS6 could mean a pricing structure that pushes people to buy both a home console and a handheld at once; and (2) whether building in compatibility across three generations, PS4 through PS6, is realistic both technically and commercially. Some commenters value backward compatibility as a feature, while others point out that leaning on it can slow the pace of new game releases — making this a topic that doesn’t reduce to a simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down. In compiling this article, some comments containing political name-calling or slurs mocking people with disabilities were excluded.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “Media: ‘New PS Handheld to Launch Alongside PS6 in Late 2027, Aiming for PS4/PS5/PS6 Compatibility’”.
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