Sony Finally Turns the PlayStation Portal Into the Handheld Streamer We Always Wanted

On release, the PlayStation Portal was nothing more than a remote-play tablet attached to the two ends of a PS5 DualSense controller. Now, Sony’s finally done the obvious and made it a cloud-streaming device. With the latest update, PlayStation Plus subscribers can play PS5 games over the internet, or at least the limited catalog of PS5 games available on PlayStation Plus.

The PlayStation Portal update started going out to users late on Tuesday. Sony said this feature is still only in beta. However, any PlayStation Plus Premium subscriber ($18 a month or $160 a year) should be able to access the PlayStation Plus streaming catalog even without a PlayStation 5. With a solid internet connection, you should be able to cloud stream your games at 1080p and 60 FPS directly to the Portal without needing to connect to your PlayStation 5 console over WiFi.

PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers get 100 GB of cloud storage for saving data, and Sony said it should save between your Portal and PS5. You’ll need a minimum of 7 Mbps for 720p streaming and 13 Mbps for 1080p, but as is always the case with streaming, the faster your internet download and upload speeds, the better. Users also need to physically enable the beta by going into Settings and hitting the new Cloud Streaming (Beta) button. 

Those who want to play some PlayStation games without shelling out $500 for a PlayStation 5 or $700 for the PlayStation 5 Pro could opt for the $200 PlayStation Portal and another $160 for a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, though we don’t recommend it. Sony has a little more than 120 games available to stream. While you could stream Last of Us Part 1, you won’t find the latest and greatest hits from the last two years on the slate of PlayStation Plus titles, like Spider-Man 2 or Astro Bot. The beta doesn’t allow you to stream any digital game you’ve purchased through the PlayStation Store or stream a game trial. 

Worst of all, you can’t play any PS4 games or PS3 titles in the Classics collection through the remote player, which seems like a massive missed opportunity. We hope these limitations change with time, but at least anybody who bought a Portal already now has an extra use case if they’re totally beholden to the PlayStation lifestyle.

It’s strange that it’s taken Sony this long to showcase a device that might, in some way, compete in today’s handheld console renaissance. The Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go, Asus ROG Ally X, and a slew of smaller brands have made handheld PCs one of the best new ways to play games on the go. With Nintendo so close to releasing its long-awaited Switch 2, the makers of Xbox and PlayStation seem to have fallen behind the times.

Last week, Xbox head Phil Spencer finally revealed the company’s first efforts to make an Xbox handheld. The company is in the prototyping phase. However, the face of Microsoft’s gaming brand told Bloomberg we wouldn’t see a real Xbox handheld until years from now, if ever. In the meantime, the company is working on improving its Xbox app for existing mobile devices.

All the while, Xbox has pushed a new ad campaign trying to convince users that anything and everything is an Xbox (perhaps even your toaster). The company promoted Xbox Game Pass on Samsung’s TVs, existing gaming handhelds like the Ally, phones, and more. Sony’s 125 streaming titles are locked to a PlayStation 5 console and the PlayStation Portal. You have to use the PlayStation Remote Play app to connect to your console in order to play any games from other devices.