Streaming comes to your dirty hands on yet another device
During its PlayStation Showcase, Sony announced its return to portable, handheld gaming.
Kind of.
Well, not really, actually.
Sony’s Jim Ryan revealed the new device, code named Project Q, during a segment on upcoming accessories for PlayStation devices. The Q is essentially a controller with a screen that streams games from a PS5 over WiFi. Sony is pushing into streaming and cloud in a big way, as early as this year, and realizes that part of that equation is for families who don’t have multiple 4K TVs to play PS5 and watch Succession at the same time. Remote Play, in other words. Granted, we already have 17 smaller screens around us to use — from Nintendo Switches to iPhones to tablets to laptops — and Sony already has already put Remote Play on most of these, though it’s not usually the most ideal interface.
Will a dedicated device be the answer?
While it would definitely be a hardware improvement over the others (the Vita actually had decent Remote Play with the PS4 back in the day) and the device’s 8-inch HD screen is a good honkin’ size, it thus far feels a bit limited in scope. Can we take it outside of the home to stream on the go (should we have a decent enough connection)? Will this be able to connect to cloud gaming in the future, so that we don’t need a PS5 at all? And, most importantly, why is it so fuuuuuugly? The screen’s edges are sticking out enough that whenever it gets dropped it’ll be a breaking point, and those gaps between the controller sides and the screen means that it’ll snag on everything.
Anyhoo, the biggest mystery is the price — if this is to be successful it’ll need to be sub $200. But if we’ve learned anything from Sony in the past, it’s got some bit “better get a second job” energy. Don’t worry, everyone is hiring right now anyways.
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