Sony’s PS5 Pro has been out less than a month, but there’s already speculation about what its next gaming hardware release could have in store for us.
And the latest report isn’t about some even more high-performance PS6 – rather, it’s that Sony is working on a new handheld that’ll be able to play PS5 games natively.Little else is known about the project right now, but Bloomberg reports that sources familiar with the device say it’ll compete against Nintendo’s Switch and the final version of the Xbox handheld that's currently being prototyped.Sony currently has a pseudo-PS5 portable in the shape of the five-star PlayStation Portal; however, where that handheld relies on an internet connection to facilitate Remote Play, or now cloud gaming for PS Plus Premium members, this new handheld would run PS5 games all on its own – like a souped up version of the scrapped PlayStation Vita or PlayStation Portable (PSP).Don’t get too excited about this possible return of the PSP just yet though, as Bloomberg’s sources added that Sony could still decide against bringing this in-development handheld to market – and that it’s still “likely years away from launch.”So it'll likely be a while before we get a better idea of what the PlayStation handheld could have in store for us, but rather than this being a Nintendo Switch rival we hope Sony targets a different portable console to take on: the Steam Deck.This would mean Sony's handheld would command a more premium price, which would make it a little less accessible, but it would likely come with a slew of possible benefits that could help justify the price, such as an OLED display instead of the disappointing LCD of the Portal, and software parity with the PS6 – which is likely to launch in a few years itself.By parity we don’t mean identical performance, but in the same way that most new PC games also launch on Steam Deck – with some graphical and performance limitations if they’re beefier AAA releases – we’d want a similar setup