Sony has announced its first mobile gaming hardware since 2011. Project Q is a portable device that combines a screen with controller grips – a kind of Playstation variant of the Nintendo Switch. The highlight: The Playstation Q cannot run games locally. Instead, Playstation titles are streamed from a PS5 to mobile device Q via Sony’s Remote Play. Remote Play can already be used on mobile devices such as cell phones.
Project Q can only play games on WiFi, said Playstation boss Jim Ryan in a live stream on Wednesday evening. There is no way to access the games from cloud gaming servers. So you can’t use the supposed mobile console on the go. Because the device requires a PS5 connection, you can’t gamble in the hotel WLAN even when traveling, for example – unless the console is permanently switched on at home. This means that the device lags behind really mobile game consoles such as the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck.
In order for Project Q to be used, you must have a PS5 at home. Any games installed on it can then be streamed to the handheld – VR titles excluded. The Project Q display is 8 inches and shows HD resolution, Sony announced. The company did not comment on the display technology. According to Insider Gaming magazine, which leaked the Playstation Q back in April, it is a 60 Hertz LC screen.
Release still 2023
According to Sony, the controller elements of the Playstation Q have all the features that the commercially available Dualsense gamepad also has, i.e. primarily adaptive triggers and precise vibration motors. The handle shape should also be similar or even identical – in fact, Q looks like someone sawed a Dualsense gamepad in half and glued a screen in between.
According to Sony, Project Q will be available later this year, but there is no exact release date yet. The price is also unknown. In 2004, Sony brought the first portable mobile console onto the market with the Playstation Portable, followed in 2011 by a successor, the Playstation Vita. Both mobile consoles from Sony are considered flops. The Vita sold just four million copies within the first year of its release, and Sony hasn’t released any sales figures since then. For comparison: The PS4 released at the end of 2013 was sold a good 18 million times within a year. Despite delivery problems, the Playstation 5 was sold more than 17 million times in its first year.
(dahe)
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