Sony’s PlayStation Portal handheld is an interesting device which uses the company’s Remote Play service in order to stream titles from your home console to the portable peripheral. As of right now however, you cannot use the Portal for cloud-based streaming, meaning you need your PS5 and a strong upload speed in order to play. Fortunately, it seems as though this major limitation will soon be lifted thanks to cloud streaming.

Sony has only recently gotten into the cloud streaming game, with PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers now being able to stream their library of titles at up to 4K 60FPS with HDR engaged. Speaking on how the PlayStation Portal may soon be able to take advantage of this service, Hideaki Nishino – the SVP of platform experience at PlayStation – said in an interview with Japanese publication AV.Watch (as translated by ResetEra user Angie):

“Honestly, it's easy to check off the features. However, we would like to proceed while carefully considering whether this is a good idea and whether we can truly provide gameplay without any problems.”

They continued, “In terms of Portal, remote play and the cloud are only different in terms of where the server is, and there are no technical problems. We will start with remote play and proceed with verification. We have been taking cloud gaming very seriously ever since we acquired Gaikai (in 2012).”

According to Nishino, “It is important not to feel like a cloud. If the transfer is waiting and expires, customers will never believe in cloud gaming again. I don't want people to say, ‘I couldn't use cloud gaming.’”

While it is somewhat odd that the PlayStation Portal does not offer cloud gaming out of the box, the fact that the handheld is based on Android means we could see a whole bunch of interesting improvements over time – perhaps even native play through emulation. We will have to wait and see.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the PlayStation Portal? Are you interested in the device? Is cloud streaming a must-have for it? Let us know down below.

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