Sony has officially unveiled the PlayStation Portal, and as a cloud-exclusive Remote Play handheld device, it’s obviously got a few caveats attached. The fact that it can’t play native games – or any native media – is, of course, one of them, while it’s also been confirmed that even the cloud library of PlayStation Plus Premium won’t be supported.
In addition, it’s also been confirmed that the PlayStation Portal won’t have Bluetooth. As reported by The Verge, that means users won’t be able to pair the PS5’s Pulse 3D wireless headset with the handheld device. The newly-revealed Pulse Elite headset and Pulse Explorer earbuds will be supported, but you’ll have to connect them using Remote Play. If you want to use them on a PS5, you’ll have to do so via a USB adapter.
I honestly don't get what they're thinking. They make phones. They making gaming equipment. Why don't they integrate those together like they did with the Xperia Play? I don't necessarily mean taking another kick at that can (but yes, they should take another kick at that can) but why not work with what they're good at? Like they work with Backbone to make a Playstation branded version of it -- but it runs on iPhones only!
It seems so obvious - make an Xperia/PSP branded gaming-grade phone, offer a first-party Backbone-like controller, sell a Playstation Portal screen-and-wifi-only device that also docks into that Backbone-like controller, etc. The only real problem is Google's monopolistic rules against letting hardware companies offer alternate stores on PlayStore-based devices, or they could have a Playstation Android Store focused on gamepad-based games that are specifically targeting their gaming Android devices.
Bring back PSP as an Sony+Android gaming brand.