Recently, Bloomberg reported via sources familiar with the project that Sony is actively developing a handheld console capable of playing PlayStation 5 titles. The device, which would be an evolution of the current streaming-only PlayStation Portal, would allow players to play their favourite Sony exclusives without the need for a PlayStation 5 home console. This trend of fusing the home and handheld gaming experience has become increasingly popular over the years, as evidenced by the soaring success of Nintendo’s Switch, Valve’s Steam Deck, and the bustling PC handheld market.

As caught by VGC, this report by Bloomberg has been corroborated by Digital Foundry. In their “DF Direct Weekly,” published on Monday, December 2nd, they mentioned that they’d been told through their own sources of Sony’s plans for this handheld console some time ago. On the topic, Senior staff writer John Linneman says, “What’s interesting about this is we actually heard about this handheld some months ago from a couple of sources specifically…it’s interesting that this finally sort of started to make its rounds because it just sort of confirmed what we had seen and heard off the record about this existing, which is cool.”

He would go on to mention that Bloomberg’s report hints that the handheld may still be further out than they initially expected, so a 2025 release may not be in the cards. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. The biggest bottlenecks for the handheld gaming space currently are chipsets that offer both power and battery efficiency while keeping manufacturing costs low, hence why Microsoft’s own Xbox handheld is likely still years away as well.

It will be interesting to see how Sony fairs in the upcoming battleground that will inevitably be consumed by gaming handhelds. From the Switch 2 to the Steam Deck 2, to the flurry of upcoming AMD Z2-powered PC devices, both Microsoft and Sony have a fair bit of competition ahead of them.