Unofficial leaks report that Sony is developing a handheld, the “PS6 Portable” — essentially a new PSP — alongside its next console, the “PS6.” The PS6 is expected to stay above $1,000 due to soaring component costs, and the new PSP is drawing attention as a cheaper device that can still run PS4/PS5 titles. New information also suggests the screen will be around 8 inches, with storage following the Switch 2’s approach of internal SSD plus a high-speed SD card slot. On 5ch’s hardware/industry (Geha) board, discussion kept going, mixing concerns that it would inherit the Switch 2’s weight and battery problems, debate over the leaked TFLOPS figures, and comments that it “looks like nothing but a Switch clone.”
Multiple sources have reported that Sony is developing a handheld gaming device, the “PS6 Portable” — essentially a new PSP — alongside its next-generation console, the “PlayStation 6.” Note that Sony has not officially announced either device by name, so for now this remains unofficial information.
As for the console PS6, its suggested retail price is expected to stay above $1,000 due to rising component costs, including memory. Because of this, attention is turning to the new PSP, which is said to support PS4/PS5 titles and would presumably be relatively cheaper, letting you “display on a big TV via a dock at home, and play on the built-in screen when out.”
Various new details about this new PSP have also surfaced, covering its processor, power consumption, and a storage setup described as “internal storage plus an SD card slot, like the Switch 2.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
Fan noise
Thermal throttling
Battery life
This pie-in-the-sky machine doesn't seem like it could clear a single one of those.
It's basically a Reiwa-era Game Gear.
7 inches would be plenty
The Switch 2 is already heavy and I barely use handheld mode anymore because of it
Or is there some other standard out there?
Probably the type used in cameras?
Even pricier than SD Express, though
Its real rival as a handheld is already the smartphone, so nobody needs this thing
Probably about twice the Switch 2, I'd guess
Apparently it's cheap
What do you think 'cheap' even means here?
I bet there's an invisible '(for the performance)' tacked on before 'cheap'
Honestly it's kind of creepy
It's to make people hold off buying a Switch 2, right?
Sony should just go under already
But the specs themselves are nothing special either — above the Switch 2, below the Xbox Series S, and only catching up to Series S level by leaning on the newer architecture
In the Moore's Law Is Dead leak that Tane (the article's author) is citing as his source, the PSP3's handheld-mode spec is 4.91 TFLOPS — so even in portable mode it's about 1.5x more powerful than the Switch 2 at full docked power.
The process node is TSMC N3P too, so it's not even comparable to the Switch 2's Samsung 8nm.
And architecture-wise, setting aside AMD vs. nVIDIA entirely, there's something like a 4-generation gap
Even the fantasy leaks are just this
It just shows how refined the Switch's form factor really is
If it were a handheld dedicated to PS1/PS2 archives, I'd kind of want one
Cheaper and faster to just grab a PSP-3000 or so, slap on custom firmware, and emulate. Easy enough a kid could do it
How exactly are you running a PS2 emulator on a PSP?
If Sony went under we'd just get a flood of speculation articles about some reborn new Sony instead
Ugh, what a pain lolol
I'm not denying it beats the Switch 2.
But for RDNA3 and later you should calculate FLOPS at roughly half the value of RDNA2-and-earlier, so 4.91 TFLOPS still falls short of the Series S.
A gap that small won't really show up across a realistic software lineup anyway
Making that exact dual-issue setup actually usable is literally one of RDNA5's big selling points
Are they inventing some proprietary standard separate from SD Express?
That just makes it more and more PSP-like lol
It's basically proof that even the haters have painfully realized there's no path left except copying the Switch
What are they even going to do about power consumption, I wonder
At this point, copying the Switch isn't going to get them anywhere anyway
Well, I don't think it has anything going for it besides raw performance
If they're copying the console's form factor, they absolutely need something more appealing than the Switch.
Even if it's more powerful and priced the same as or below the Switch, it's basically dead on arrival since it can't run Nintendo games.
Sony's first-party lineup is too weak, and there's no third party that can go toe-to-toe either.
The only thing that could possibly compete is if it ran Steam?
Just get a Steam Deck then
No matter how hard they try at this point, PlayStation's cooked
Yeah, exactly
However you slice it, it's a complete dead end
If they release it as a mobile-device form factor, its real rival stops being the Switch and becomes UMPCs instead
— people have been saying that for a while now
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This topic originates from multiple unofficial leaks claiming Sony is developing a handheld, the “PS6 Portable” (a new PSP), alongside the console “PS6” — Sony has made no official announcement of either. On pricing, the PS6 console itself is expected to stay above $1,000 due to soaring component costs like memory, and the claim that the new PSP will be “relatively cheap” is only a comparison against that baseline — it’s easy to mistake this for an actually affordable price. Where the thread split was over how much to trust the specs: some took an optimistic view of performance based on the TFLOPS figures, while others, citing differences between RDNA generations, argued those numbers were overrated. On the other hand, concerns about practical handheld issues like weight, heat, and battery life, plus the view that it’s just imitating the Switch 2, were common across many posts. CFW and emulation also came up, but these were discussed as general knowledge about modding existing hardware rather than anything specific to this leak.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (Geha) board thread “Tane: ‘New PSP Said to Have ~8-Inch Screen, Internal SSD + High-Speed SD Card’.”
