Sony gives a pretty clear explanation on why the PlayStation Portal isn’t natively running games like the PS Vita or Nintendo Switch.
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The $199 PlayStation Portal is a curious device–it started out as only supporting Remote Play, meaning gamers already had to have a PlayStation 5 in order to actually play anything on the handheld. It was essentially a receiver-only device, although Google’s engineers did hack a Portal to run a PSP emulator.
Now Sony is bringing cloud streaming to the PS Portal via a new beta program. This allows gamers to just buy a $199 PS Portal and play PS5 games through the cloud all without having to own an actual console. But many have wondered why Sony took this route in the first place? In a word, it all comes down to profits (the PS Portal is very profitable), and creating a new dedicated handheld platform would cost a lot of time and money.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, PlayStation Platform Business Group CEO Hideaki Nishino discussed why the PS Portal only streams games and doesn’t actually play them.
Essentially, Sony wanted to make it easy for developers and not complicate game development any more than necessary. Creating a PS Vita 2 would require devs to scale their games for low-power devices, not to mention new SoC designs and dedicated hardware to beef up the handheld’s internals.
“I think the focus will be on whether the developer can provide something that meets the customer’s needs and style without remaking the game. As with PS Portal, remote play does not require creators to tweak the code. Our cloud gaming also does not require creators to spend time on it.
“If we start saying things like, ‘please make it compatible because the screen is small,’ or ‘please do something about the small memory,'[ we will have to do a lot of things. …If we try to create something with restrictions, I think we will have to tweak the code somewhere.
“At that time, I thought it was important to put in place a system that allows creators to respond without any trouble. Anyway, we are thinking about how to make it a platform that is easy for people to create games.
“,,,I think there was a time when operating multiple platforms at the same time was a burden for both SIE and creators. Since then, with the evolution of technology, I feel that we have come closer to being able to provide various play styles without putting a burden on creators.
“We try to avoid putting a burden on creators with cloud gaming and PS Portal remote play, but even if it becomes a different form, we will support creators so that they can provide content to the platform more smoothly without causing them any inconvenience. Rather than calling it a product form, I would like to cherish this as a philosophy and a discipline.”