ToTTenTranz
Banned
Why are people advocating for Sony and Microsoft to not make handheld consoles?
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Is it time for Microsoft and Sony to enter the handheld consoles market?
- Thread starter .Pennywise
- Start date
Tams
Member
Because they can't even get out enough exclusives for their existing consoles, let alone some that would be adapted to and take advantage of being on a handheld console.
ToTTenTranz
Banned
That wouldn't be a huge problem for Microsoft because all their games are coming out to PC regardless, so they'd only need a Rembrandt-like APU.
Heck, Microsoft should just launch a "Windows Gamepass" handheld. It was probably in their plans as well, since they're the ones who originally ordered AMD to make Van Gogh, Steam Deck's APU.
Tams
Member
Go on, name three major ones.
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Psp is considered a failure, and yet they made the vita, when it comes to Microsoft the only mobile they have is laptops and windows gaming. Mobile gaming’s legacy is led by Nintendo and the switch.
![[Sigma]](/data/avatars/m/701/701747.jpg?1685439978){kind=avatar}
Reading all the comments in this thread, it's clear people don't understand why Vita failed and this can not happen again.
The problem with Vita, and in a small part with PSP also, was developers didn't want to spend resources on one platform only. Vita didn't have big issues per se, but the problem developers were expecting to port PS3 games on Vita easily, like 1-1, and they were hugely disappointed when they found out Vita was powerful but not that powerful, so sometime they had to spend lot of money to redo games almost from scratch. In 2011 developers already had to split budget for PC games, current consoles (PS360), next gen consoles (PS4,XB1), mobile games and handheld (PSP,DS, 3DS), they basically had to find money for Vita games exclusively.
Now you don't have to split the budget that much, when a high end game on PC can almost run on Switch, so handhelds have much more sense.
The problem with Vita, and in a small part with PSP also, was developers didn't want to spend resources on one platform only. Vita didn't have big issues per se, but the problem developers were expecting to port PS3 games on Vita easily, like 1-1, and they were hugely disappointed when they found out Vita was powerful but not that powerful, so sometime they had to spend lot of money to redo games almost from scratch. In 2011 developers already had to split budget for PC games, current consoles (PS360), next gen consoles (PS4,XB1), mobile games and handheld (PSP,DS, 3DS), they basically had to find money for Vita games exclusively.
Now you don't have to split the budget that much, when a high end game on PC can almost run on Switch, so handhelds have much more sense.
lughnasadh123
Member
They won't and honestly shouldn't especially with streaming to phones continually getting better.
Imru’ al-Qays
Member
A handheld PS4 would be a great way to take advantage of the long cross-gen period
Dr. Suchong
Member
A hybrid PlayStation 5 would be very appealing to me personally.
Hugare
Member
Nintendo is the undisputed handheld king, and even them werent confident enough making the Switch a handheld, so they made a hybrid console/handheld thingy
For MS or Sony, its not worth it. Splitting devs between console/handheld is a recipe for disaster. We would have a Vita situation.
"Well they could port their console games", perhaps. Steam Deck can play current gen games.
But they are already losing money producing current gen consoles. To have a Steam Deck tier handheld, they would have to lose even more money.
It would cost tons of money anyway and it would still be niche
It's not happening, OP
For MS or Sony, its not worth it. Splitting devs between console/handheld is a recipe for disaster. We would have a Vita situation.
"Well they could port their console games", perhaps. Steam Deck can play current gen games.
But they are already losing money producing current gen consoles. To have a Steam Deck tier handheld, they would have to lose even more money.
It would cost tons of money anyway and it would still be niche
It's not happening, OP
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PumpkinPie
Banned
No, I don't want downscaled versions of console games like the PSP had. Handhelds should offer something different.
FBeeEye
Banned
Compared to mobile phone gaming, it is by a long shot. It's less profitable too.
Sid Of Bee
Member
Microsoft should just make a gamepad controller/adapter for mobile, that includes an HDMI out, high speed wireless casting and a 1 year game pass subscription with games tailored for that market thru the subscription.
alabtrosMyster
Banned
As I said before, something like the steam deck made to run ps4 games would be great!
Maybe it would force a few more years of cross gen games tho.
Maybe it would force a few more years of cross gen games tho.
Stuart360
Member
I think rather than a dedicated handheld with dedicated hardware that will get its own games, i think it would make more sense for Xbox and Playstation to make a portable system that can play current, and prior, generation games.
So in Xbox case, a XSS level handheld that can download current gen games and play them on the go.
I think the days of handhelds with dedicated hardware with its own seperate games, are over (outside of Nintendo).
So in Xbox case, a XSS level handheld that can download current gen games and play them on the go.
I think the days of handhelds with dedicated hardware with its own seperate games, are over (outside of Nintendo).
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coffinbirth
Member
It's completely doable in a Steam Deck form factor, however...and I fully expect it's successor to be meeting if not exceeding Series S performance thresholds. Keep in mind Switch and Vita tech is old as dirt at this point and phones a fraction of the size of either can trounce them performance-wise. It's all relative.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Yes but phones also throttle to all hell, and drop from peak performance very quickly. In fact, they only tend to run at peak for a few minutes at most before throttling kicks in.
Portables like the Switch, Vita and I'd also throw in Steam Deck, are designed for sustained performance at their advertised specs for as long as their batteries are charged. They don't throttle like phones do. They have to be designed around that, which is the main difference between them.
I can't see a Steam Deck 2 having Series S-level specs unless it's releasing in 2025 or later, and that's still going to probably require 5nm or smaller. So in other words, a Steam Deck 2 with a heftier price tag than its predecessor. And a new handheld/portable from Sony or Microsoft with those types of specs? Welp, they better prepare to bleed money like they haven't bled for a while on hardware, if they want reasonable mass-market MSRPs to move volume.
Personally I think we probably won't see a portable with Series S-style specs (or slightly better) until at earliest 2026, if you want something in a reasonable $299 - $399 price point and good quality build, and not lose too much on production costs per unit.
Woopah
Member
Most switch owners user it on the TV at least some of the time. Your notion that they don't use the dock I'd completely untrue.
Any handheld from Sony or Microsoft would have to run the same games as their console. Which either means having an expensive handheld or a lower powered console.
Both of these are possible, but I can't see it being that attractive for either Sony or Microsoft just yet.
Any handheld from Sony or Microsoft would have to run the same games as their console. Which either means having an expensive handheld or a lower powered console.
Both of these are possible, but I can't see it being that attractive for either Sony or Microsoft just yet.
coffinbirth
Member
My point was to illustrate power equivalency to size in regards to Switch. Even throttled, a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 can outperform a Tegra X1, and that goes without saying phones with active cooling and minimal throttling exist.
One needs to look no further than Nvidia is doing with that very same Tegra line with the Orin family of SoC to see how quickly the power to size ratio hurdle is dissipating, and that is tech developed in 2018. How close we are to seeing that in this type of product is anyone's guess, but these are ARM to ARM comparisons which is not even really the topic at hand, haha.
Steam Deck is Zen2 with RDNA2 and pretty damn cheap. What does Zen4 and RDNA3 look like? Phoenix APU...5.4TF. (Same as Orin, coincidently.) That is 2023. Zen5 is 2024. I suppose the real questions are when would Valve begin setting the specs in stone, when will it hit the market, and what is their price point? The power is already there.
But yeah, 2025 seems likely to me, personally. I'm also curious to see if Nintendo sticks with Tegra for their next offering, which I also suspect to be 2024-2025. If they do, I hope they use Xavier, which is being somewhat realistic for Nintendo, and that lands at 1.4TFs with tensor cores. That would be very nice for a Nintendo handheld.
CamHostage
Member
It may be past time, unfortunately...
The PC gaming device already has its breakthrough device (and is also overrun with competitors,) neither MS or Sony have interests inside the Android gaming device market (Sony at one point seemed like it was going to be active in that back in the Xperia Play / PlayStation Certified days, but that fizzled,) they won't get a handheld powerful enough to play PS5/Series games, there's limited market for a dedicated streaming device (and also, all other devices can do it just as well,) and nobody's crazy enough to do unique-ecosystem portable device again.
If Sony or MS put out a "retro" handheld which specifically played downloadable PS1/2/3 or XB1/360 games as well as worked as a streaming device, that would be something that could fit a unique niche in the market, and would be a market they control and can bank off of. However, there are a lot of hurdles to making that happen (not to mention that Sony delisted its retro games, so it'd be a whole thing to retrofit PSN again with those titles.)
The PC gaming device already has its breakthrough device (and is also overrun with competitors,) neither MS or Sony have interests inside the Android gaming device market (Sony at one point seemed like it was going to be active in that back in the Xperia Play / PlayStation Certified days, but that fizzled,) they won't get a handheld powerful enough to play PS5/Series games, there's limited market for a dedicated streaming device (and also, all other devices can do it just as well,) and nobody's crazy enough to do unique-ecosystem portable device again.
If Sony or MS put out a "retro" handheld which specifically played downloadable PS1/2/3 or XB1/360 games as well as worked as a streaming device, that would be something that could fit a unique niche in the market, and would be a market they control and can bank off of. However, there are a lot of hurdles to making that happen (not to mention that Sony delisted its retro games, so it'd be a whole thing to retrofit PSN again with those titles.)
ToTTenTranz
Banned
Three what, major games?
Halo, Forza Horizon and Sea of Thieves?
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Sony can make a handheld with on par game with PS5 and twice the battery life of Steam Deck
PumpkinPie
Banned
They can, but nobody will buy it.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Playstation players will play it
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
It would make no commercial sense for them.
The age of dedicated handheld software is over. The 3DS was the last of its species, and resistive screens probably died with it too. No reason for smaller third party games to be developed for a specific piece of hardware like that when they can run on any potato. As for the biggest exclusive IPs, PSP and Vita proved more than enough that people don’t want the dollar store version of Uncharted or God of War when the hardware is expensive and the better experience is on the home console anyway.
Nintendo is the notable exception. They absolutely need to have a portable system because their biggest IP, Pokémon, could not enjoy the same success as a home console game only. And they not being a company to waste resources on 100+ GB games with 4K graphics and multimillion dollar production values, they could accept to compromise this much on hardware.
Sony’s only choice at this point is to port their exclusives to PC and leave the hardware and performance problem entirely to the customer if the customer doesn’t want to buy their proprietary hardware. But this also means that Sony have seen the writing on the wall. Exclusive AAA+ software isn’t a console killer app anymore, and outside of enthusiasts and FOMO, there’s only so many people who’ll buy your hardware for these games. The midrange PC crowd can accept the performance compromises, and the high-end PCMR crowd will get a better experience anyway. The downside is that the average PC player isn’t as interested in their games as of now, but that will change when more console gamers realize that going PC is the more convenient choice in the long run. If one day Sony’s games come to PC day and date with the console version, that’s the day those games will benefit from FOMO on PC too, and the console will become less relevant. So Sony really have no reason for new proprietary handheld hardware. They wouldn’t make games for it when so many resources are needed for their first party projects, and moneyhatting visual novels that you can play on your smartphone instead would be stupid.
Then there’s streaming. Like it or not, smartphones and tablets have a reach that no console has and will never have ever again. Apart from the enthusiasts crowd, people will accept the compromises of streaming if they can play God of War on their phone or tablet. Compatibility with console controllers is expanding by the day. People have been watching movies on way worse screens than the average phone has today, you’d be a fool to think they won’t play The Last of Us on anything but a big TV.
People will go where the games are, that’s why the Switch has been so successful so far and why PlayStation is still going strong in the west. But convenience trumps all, and the biggest games have gotten too big and expensive to remain limited to the console market. Gaming already is mostly handheld, and it’s only going to be more and more in the future. Streaming will serve both the handheld device and the TV+couch crowd, and you won’t need a dedicated device to play the games. Consoles may not be dead in the foreseeable future, but the costs have gotten too high for their walled gardens to not get more than a few cracks in their walls. A future with dedicated Nintendo, Sony and MS game streaming services available for any phone, computer, tablet and smart TV under the sun is perfectly possible. It would make perfect sense, and that’s why these companies are going more and more into acquisitions and developing their paid services. They know their business.
The age of dedicated handheld software is over. The 3DS was the last of its species, and resistive screens probably died with it too. No reason for smaller third party games to be developed for a specific piece of hardware like that when they can run on any potato. As for the biggest exclusive IPs, PSP and Vita proved more than enough that people don’t want the dollar store version of Uncharted or God of War when the hardware is expensive and the better experience is on the home console anyway.
Nintendo is the notable exception. They absolutely need to have a portable system because their biggest IP, Pokémon, could not enjoy the same success as a home console game only. And they not being a company to waste resources on 100+ GB games with 4K graphics and multimillion dollar production values, they could accept to compromise this much on hardware.
Sony’s only choice at this point is to port their exclusives to PC and leave the hardware and performance problem entirely to the customer if the customer doesn’t want to buy their proprietary hardware. But this also means that Sony have seen the writing on the wall. Exclusive AAA+ software isn’t a console killer app anymore, and outside of enthusiasts and FOMO, there’s only so many people who’ll buy your hardware for these games. The midrange PC crowd can accept the performance compromises, and the high-end PCMR crowd will get a better experience anyway. The downside is that the average PC player isn’t as interested in their games as of now, but that will change when more console gamers realize that going PC is the more convenient choice in the long run. If one day Sony’s games come to PC day and date with the console version, that’s the day those games will benefit from FOMO on PC too, and the console will become less relevant. So Sony really have no reason for new proprietary handheld hardware. They wouldn’t make games for it when so many resources are needed for their first party projects, and moneyhatting visual novels that you can play on your smartphone instead would be stupid.
Then there’s streaming. Like it or not, smartphones and tablets have a reach that no console has and will never have ever again. Apart from the enthusiasts crowd, people will accept the compromises of streaming if they can play God of War on their phone or tablet. Compatibility with console controllers is expanding by the day. People have been watching movies on way worse screens than the average phone has today, you’d be a fool to think they won’t play The Last of Us on anything but a big TV.
People will go where the games are, that’s why the Switch has been so successful so far and why PlayStation is still going strong in the west. But convenience trumps all, and the biggest games have gotten too big and expensive to remain limited to the console market. Gaming already is mostly handheld, and it’s only going to be more and more in the future. Streaming will serve both the handheld device and the TV+couch crowd, and you won’t need a dedicated device to play the games. Consoles may not be dead in the foreseeable future, but the costs have gotten too high for their walled gardens to not get more than a few cracks in their walls. A future with dedicated Nintendo, Sony and MS game streaming services available for any phone, computer, tablet and smart TV under the sun is perfectly possible. It would make perfect sense, and that’s why these companies are going more and more into acquisitions and developing their paid services. They know their business.
March Climber
Member
I've said it before elsewhere, but I'm really curious how things will go with Nintendo once this generation picks up. The switch can barely handle late gen UE4 games from PS4/XBO and it's having to turn to streaming for most of them. What's their next step for 3rd party support? How much power can a Switch 2 have?
Tams
Member
Well, Nintendo are now completely 'out of sync' with the other two. They are certain to release a new console in the next few years as it's been a 'generation' for them now.
SteelCurtain 59
Member
Neither should enter the handheld market, it just splinters their first party like what was happening to Nintendo prior to the Switch. The Xbox approach is probably ideal way to use the handheld market, have a way to stream games to a mobile device, that way the mobile device people get all the same games, and development doesn't need to be hampered by making a "handheld" version of a game. There's nothing worse than a good game being trapped on a handheld platform, it's honestly my favorite thing about the Switch, being able to play games like Pokemon and Fire Emblem on my TV with a controller instead of hunched over a small screen
I Master l
Banned
In what universe Steam Deck is doing great? it just sold 1 million units and i'd argue it wont evet touch PS Vita numbers, i am
aware those are great numbers for a niche product like the deck but let not pretend its making handheld market irrelevant for
both Sony and MS
aware those are great numbers for a niche product like the deck but let not pretend its making handheld market irrelevant for
both Sony and MS
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thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
I almost wonder, then, if MS planned to use Van Gogh in Project Keystone? I mean why else order AMD to make such a GPU? Unless they have plans for a future Surface device featuring AMD in it.
Okay, so maybe the power is there, and the means to have that performance deliverable in a portable format that can stay persistent in the level of performance is also there, or getting there, and we can maybe see something of a Series S-type spec soon in the handheld portable space, be it from Valve with a SteamDeck 2 or some other company...at least in terms of TF.
But there are other components to overall performance to consider. You mentioned the Phoenix APU; clearly it has more TF than Series S. But does it have a comparable pixel fillrate? Texture fillrate? Geometry culling and rasterization rate? Those are things that would be influenced by amount of ROPs, TMUs, and the clock speed of the frontend, respectively (though RDNA 3 increased prims/clock to 12, and shaders are now dual-issue instead of single-issue like RDNA 2, so clocks can be more modest or even lower and still provide comparable or higher TF and geometry culling/raster performance to an RDNA 2 design with notably higher clocks, to be fair).
Then there's other things like what memory configuration would they be able to fit in such a device. Chances are, they won't use GDDR6 or GDDR6x, and HBM-based memories are probably too expensive not to mention, RDNA 3 GPUs may not be designed with HBM interfaces in mind to begin with. So they are going to be stuck with LPDDR5x or LPDDR6, and I don't think a SO-DIMM design gets them the memory bandwidth they'd need to provide comparable performance to a Series S in a portable device targeting 2025 or even 2026.
Dell have their new CAMM memory designs that are meant to supersede SO-DIMM; it's an interesting design that would address the bandwidth limitations that could impact future laptops and other portable devices, while being simpler to integrate vs. soldering the RAM onto the motherboard. But it's also proprietary, limited in product usage (currently) and not JEDEC-standard. There's a chance a company like Valve could license a CAMM design out from Dell for a Steam Deck 2, but it's a limited chance.
Any such portable would also need sufficient decompression I/O; IIRC the Steam Deck doesn't actually have a dedicated decompression I/C chip like the Series systems, although it probably supports faster SSDs than Series S or X's expansion cards do. That isn't necessarily enough to resolve the typical bottlenecks of storage I/O, and while things like DirectStorage are meant to address those, they do it in a hardware-agnostic fashion with mostly software-driven solutions, so some amount of hardware overhead on the device utilizing it will determine the overall effectiveness of the DirectStorage routines and functions. A portable handheld targeting a mass consumer market isn't going to have the type of built-in hardware to both provide sufficient gaming performance on the go AND overhead for I/O data decompression, and while I don't think the decompression chip in Series systems (or even the decompression I/O system of the PS5) cost that much to produce, the R&D associated with them is probably not cheap. Do companies like Valve spring for that R&D in a Steam Deck 2 targeting something like Series S performance as a baseline? Who knows.
That reminds me of the EverCade retro handheld. The one where they've gotten actual publishers to release flash cart compilations of retro games to run on the system, it's a pretty neat idea and helps clean up the muddiness WRT the legality of those types of devices, by working directly with the publishers owning the games those devices are meant to play, and locking down the medium to a format that only provides authenticated access.
Sony putting out a retro-themed portable for PS1/2/3/PSP/Vita games they can sell for a profit on its own (since it's targeting a specific niche that would be willing to pay more), they can even design with shells mimicking the classic consoles (adds collectability incentive), a locked-down media format for physical games released in packs (and maybe a storefront fork from PS Store for digital versions of individual games), functional controller ports for legacy PS peripheral devices...that could be a pretty decent market to appeal to.
ToTTenTranz
Banned
Keystone should require only a cheap <3W ULP SoC from e.g. Amlogic or Mediatek with an ARM CPU to receive and decode video and send gamepad input to the internet. It should be the same as a Steam Link but with faster networking and AV1 / HEVC decode. Van Gogh is way too powerful, capable and expensive for that.
Whatever Microsoft Surface device was going to use Van Gogh, it was supposed to be announced in January 2021 at CES, and what happened instead was Valve picking up the chip half a year later.
Perhaps it was meant for a Surface non-Pro, with the Pro models getting Rembrandt. In the meantime we found out that Panos Panay's Surface team cut ties with AMD, because Intel somehow managed to get exclusivity again for all x86 Surface models (despite having the worse architecture for mobile).
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UltimaKilo
Gold Member
Microsoft is leaving the hardware space little by little… you can already stream XCloud from a phone quite well, and it will only improve.
Why would Sony do this? They’re focused on VR and PS5.
Why would Sony do this? They’re focused on VR and PS5.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Gold Member
Well that is interesting, and I wonder if there are implications with future MS/AMD collaborative efforts in the wake of that sudden deal. It's not the first time Intel's cut into a business relationship to their advantage, I'm just curious if and how that impacts any future developments between AMD and MS for hardware collaborations.
I imagine it has to have at least some kind of perceptible negative impact there.
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Its been supply constrained for the most part, not in retails and only sold in limited countries. pretty stupid to compare it to the Vita which is readily available everywhere.
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I Master l
Banned
Still it will not sell 15 million units like the Vita did
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ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Well, its going to have a succeeding handheld unlike the Vita.
Kataploom
Gold Member
PS5 and XSX say hello
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