PlayStation Portal: One Month Later Article

gamingnexus.com:

By now, you’ve probably heard of Sony’s latest foray into the realm of portable gaming, known as the PlayStation Portal Remote Player, or PlayStation Portal for short. Derided as a half-measure towards a proper PlayStation handheld prior to release by some fans, and lauded as a game changer by others, one thing has become clear in the 30-plus days since its launch – the PlayStation Portal has been nothing short of a success for Sony. For more than a month, it has been one of the hottest gaming devices on the market, drifting in and out of stock at retailers, and being November’s fourth best-selling piece of gaming hardware in these United States, according to industry analytics firm Circana. You read that correctly – Sony’s $200 handheld device that requires a PlayStation 5, good internet capabilities, and does nothing but stream games outsold Valve’s Steam Deck, ASUS’ ROG Ally, and every virtual reality headset on the market. Another way to look at it is it was fourth behind PS5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S.

I don’t know that anyone predicted PlayStation Portal would do this well. Hell, even I talked myself out of needing one early after its reveal. But the reality is that this thing works, and it works well, albeit with some significant caveats. For starters, your home internet needs to be somewhat robust. Sony says you need a download speed of at least 15Mbps. I say you need far more than that to get a truly worthwhile experience, though, it’s hard to imagine that most people, especially in America, don’t have a speed of at least 50Mbps. Secondarily, you need to hardwire your PS5 to your WiFi router directly with an ethernet cable for the best experience in my, well…experience. I can’t stress that part