A Free Update Just Made the PlayStation Portal a Much Better Handheld

Sony’s PlayStation Portal didn’t excite the senses the way the words “PlayStation handheld†should. Released in 2023, Sony’s “remote player†was designed to stream your games from a PS5 to its 8-inch screen for play in another room. It’s not exactly the kind of device you would want to take on the go. But now, after a free software update, the Portal is its own handheld beast capable of playing games streamed directly from the cloud, no PS5 required.

Sony has been promising this cloud streaming update since November 2024. After a year of testing, Sony’s odd device—literally a DualSense controller flanking an LCD tablet screen—can stream games at 1080p and connect to compatible wireless headsets and earbuds for spatial audio.

Access to cloud streaming will still mandate a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription worth $18 a month or $160 a year. Yes, that’s far less than the $30 per month that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate now costs, though Sony’s service doesn’t grant you immediate access to major games on release date. The cost of Premium isn’t a small chunk of change, though now there are more streamable games available on the platform than before. Recent titles like Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Borderlands 4, and Ghost of YÅtei are available to stream if you already own them and they exist in your digital games library. Older titles on the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog and Classics Catalog are also available for streaming, such as The Last of Us Part II Remastered and Silent Hill 2. The full list of available titles is pretty beefy compared to where the service was just a year ago.

The update also enables a new UI to access all these titles. When you update the PlayStation Portal, you’ll now see three tabs at the top of the screen for remote play, cloud streaming, and searching for titles. The streaming page will open up to all your available games ready to stream. There’s another page where you can browse all the available games not currently in your library. You can also go in and purchase games in these menus without having to jump to your PS5 or phone. Hitting the PS button on the Portal will also open up a window to change your streaming settings. That includes the ability to change text size for some games that may not be legible on a miniaturized display.

Cloud Streaming officially arrives on PlayStation Portal today.

PS Plus Premium members can now stream select digital PS5 games in their library, in addition to hundreds of compatible games from the Game Catalog and Classics Catalog: https://t.co/EHMIjnErWn pic.twitter.com/IRLYmDAib5

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) November 5, 2025

Sure, the PlayStation Portal can now operate completely independent of any PlayStation 5, but you should still only get one if you happen to own any of the console models. In the long run, the streamlined UI could be the most significant update to PlayStation’s hardware considering what may be in store in the future. Sony’s head designer of PlayStation hardware, Mark Cerny, recently confirmed the company is working on a next-gen device. Current and future consoles will likely support novel AI upscaling technology—specifically AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 4. What the company hasn’t been forthcoming on is how it may be working on both a gaming handheld and a traditional console at the same time.

Leaked specs from reliable AMD beans-spiller Moore’s Law is Dead proposes this handheld could connect to a TV with a dock for slightly enhanced performance thanks to more fans for better thermals, akin to the Nintendo Switch 2. This console will likely be more like a Steam Deck than the classic PlayStation Vita, with a larger display and gamepad-like controls. However, I suspect Sony is using the Portal as a testbed for how to design a small-scale handheld UI. It’s putting the games front and center. Xbox is behind on the usability front with its recent handheld adventures.

Sony’s Portal UI is far better suited for a small 8-inch, 1080p display than what you get with Windows-based handheld PCs. Case in point: the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X. The handheld shipped with the “full screen experience,†or FSE, a version of Windows that makes it easier to navigate multiple apps on such a small screen. Unfortunately, it’s not yet fully baked. Whereas the FSE is better than Windows 11 by itself, it still lacks console-like quality-of-life features, like navigating some Xbox app menus with the bumper buttons. Xbox and Asus are still trying to work out the kinks that cause the device to repeatedly turn on or become unresponsive after it is put to sleep.

Devices like the $350 Logitech G Cloud proved that streaming isn’t enough to sell a handheld on its own. If anything, the PlayStation Portal can be an amuse-bouche for Sony’s next gaming ambitions.