eurogamer.net

dinckelman, do games w PlayStation Portal review: impressive hardware but is Remote Play itself good enough?

I genuinely just don’t understand the value proposition of this handheld. It’s remote play only, with no standalone capabilities, that also only works with the PS5. You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product. Or if you’re committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality, but also have a system that can not only play your PC games, but play like 5 generations of console games from the past

scrubbles,
!deleted6348 avatar

It’s good for a niche market, people who have multiple people living in the house where they have to share a TV, but don’t need to share the PlayStation. In that one niche it makes sense to me

In every other way though, why not a handheld?

echo64, (edited )

I think that niche might be bigger and more normal than you think it is.

Why a handheld if 99% of people don’t want to use it outside of the house and just want a home-portsble

Edit to just point out how disappointed I am in this community lately. It’s become all the things that made me dislike reddit. The circlejerk here is just as strong, and all the discussions we had initially are gone in favor of updooting my opinion and downdooting everyone else.

FullFridge,

Agreed, people on here can’t seem to understand how this product could be successful? Every post about it on here has the same upvoted comments about how people should get a Steam Deck instead. If someone comments about why they like it or are happy with it, it gets downvoted.

Personally I probably won’t ever buy one of these but to act like your opinion about something as unimportant as a this is better than everyone else’s screams of reddit to me. Why not just let people be happy with their purchase?

bitsplease,

Yeah it was odd to read that description being presented as an oddity - that sounds like most households I know. If you have a wife, kids, or roommate and don’t enjoy being holed up in your own room the whole time you play (and those sharing your house don’t just want to watch you game all night) then in house streaming is a huge boon.

I PC game, but most of my gaming is done on the couch, streamed onto my phone. I’ve been very tempted to buy a dedicated streaming device lately to avoid draining my phone battery while playing

Gamoc, (edited )

It’s an oddity because there’s already multiple devices in most homes that can remote play, paying for a device that can ONLY remote play is about the stupidest waste of money I can think of when I have two phones, a PC, a laptop and a tablet that can all do the same thing. Hell if you plug in an ethernet cable the PC and laptop well do it better.

It could have been a cool device if you could use it to stream from PS+/Now, but you can’t. It could be cool if it had like a vita in it or something so you could play vita games, but it didn’t. It’s an idea with potential, but they shoved all that potential in a bin and instead released something that’s completely useless unless it’s connected to your PS5. What a waste.

echo64,

It’s completely useless, unless you want to play your ps5 in the same kind of way you play a nintendo switch. In which case it works super well.

it turns out a lot of people want that. People could stick a laptop on their lap and get out a controller and play nintendo switch on that too, but that’s a pain. people just want a thing they can pick up. and they are happy to have it. even if you are angry about it.

Gamoc,

There’s multiple devices that allow you to play your PS5 like a Switch, and they all do more.

I’m not angry, you can have opinions about things you’re not angry about. I’m disappointed that Sony charged as much as possible for the bare minimum again, just a lack of ambition and abundance of cost.

echo64,

we all think that it costs too much don’t worry, but also you should understand the value proposition it has. people are paying “too much” because it serves a real function.

no, we don’t want to hogtie a controller to a phone, we want the nice ergonomics of a playstation controller all built together. it’s worth understanding that value.

willya,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

Edit to just point out how disappointed I am in this community lately. It’s become all the things that made me dislike reddit. The circlejerk here is just as strong, and all the discussions we had initially are gone in favor of updooting my opinion and downdooting everyone else.

This has been Lemmy wide and growing substantially. I’m put off and disappointed as well.

TwilightVulpine,

Both of you had too lofty dreams for social media. Reddit itself used to be like that too, by convincing themselves that this sort of idealistic attitude could last, or that “circlejerk”, that is, the influence of majority opinion, was ever not present. This is a place for discussion among regular people, not a philosophical symposium of specialists, as if those environments were truly neutral and universally accepting either.

As platforms grow beyond the most invested niche users, most people will not put more energy into any discussion than a general agree or disagree. The tendency of downvotes is always to become a disagree button, no matter how much one might insist otherwise. In such a semi-anonymous platform, a modicum of politeness is already an achievement.

Really, if you do want to have such a perfectly open and supportive discussion group you might want to select particular people to create a small forum. But by doing that, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you won’t escape some form of circlejerk.

echo64,

This platform has shrunk, not grown. The good people seem to have left, maybe as a result of the reddit people coming in?

Here’s the thing, this platform is small. It is a small forum, and it’s changed in tone from being a place of discussion, to a place of jerking

TwilightVulpine,

The good people seem to have left, maybe as a result of the reddit people coming in?

Or maybe as a result of poor moderation. The way how other instances defederated from lemmy.world comes to mind. Compared to the other instances I am in, this one seems more belligerent, and that’s not a matter of up or downvotes.

I have to admit I did come from reddit, but if there was a moment of pure, 100% jerk free discussion here, I must have entirely missed it. Then again I was on reddit before people started saying circlejerk took over, and in retrospect that was an entirely idealized memory. If anything, it overrepresented certain viewpoints far more before the “circlejerk took over”

willya,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

Dunno why you stretched that point across so many words. I’m not speaking on just downvotes. There’s trigger words that will almost universally get you comment bombed along with being downvoted. We filtered everyone of the same mind from Reddit and brought them here. To the point that Reddit could theoretically be better now.

BorgDrone,

You could use your existing phone, and receive exactly the same product.

Your phone has an 8” screen and an integrated Dual Sense?

Or if you’re committed to buying a handheld, you could absolutely get a Steam Deck, still receive the remote functionality

Your Steam Deck has adaptive triggers and HD haptics? Mine doesn’t.

I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.

slaacaa,

Funny how they pretend to ask a question, then downvote you when you give them an answer they don’t like.

It’s also half the price of the SD with a bigger resolution screen (bUt mUh oLEd). I pick it up, press like 2 buttons, and I’m playing in 20 sec. I was happy to pay for the convenience, have been using it a lot since I got it the day after the release.

ocassionallyaduck,

Honestly when it drops to $150 or so, I’m in. Mostly for these same reasons. I use the PS5 on the good TV, but if I wanna be in the room with my partner while they watch a trash reality show, and keep working on my game, this is perfect. At $200, I’ll stick with remote play on Android and a Bluetooth controller, but the Portal seems better for this use case. So when the price is low enough… Sure.

bitsplease,

Lol, would love to hear why on earth this is downvoted - guess we’re in full on reddit mode and just downvoting everything that isn’t exactly what I think lol

Gamoc,

You can plug your dual sense into both a phone and a steam deck without it costing you any more money.

BorgDrone,

And the dual-sense then attaches to your phone and increases the size of the screen for free?

Gamoc,

Get some glue and make a holder or something. Bigger screen? Use a tablet, laptop, or PC that you’ve probably already got. £200 for a device that can’t do anything on its own? Stop bending over for them.

BorgDrone,

You pay for convenience.

Gamoc,

Yeah, and convenience used to be putting multiple different functions in one device. Now apparently it’s more convenient to pay £200 for a device that can literally only do one thing instead of using the many other devices you already own to conveniently do the same thing.

willya,
@willya@lemmyf.uk avatar

This goes for lots of things. What point are you making? You’re mad people are wasting money? When they didn’t cuz they like their purchase.

Gamoc,

No I’m disappointed they didn’t make a worthwhile device. I would’ve loved this if it had some worthwhile additions, but it’s an overpriced screen with a controller attached, useless without your PS5 connected to it wirelessly.

Even just streaming from PS+/Now would’ve done it for me, but “here’s a way to play games you already own that are installed on the console you already own, but it costs £200 and you could do the same thing with many of the devices you already own, some of which may have an ethernet connection, so they’re better at it” just feels like a waste.

Hopefully it’ll get hacked and they’ll get gamepass streaming on it or something.

BorgDrone,

Then don’t buy it.

Gamoc,

Did you think I was going to?

SmoothIsFast,

It’s just a $200 pro controller with a screen. I don’t think it’s gonna have a massive market, but for what it is, it’s not entirely terrible. Not everyone has a phone with a large screen so upgrading to a $1k phone is not a move they can make, but $200 for what’s basically an extra controller with an 8in display is not terrible just very niche.

Edit: If you just want a screen controller combo for streaming, there are a myriad of android based options littered in the space for nearly the same cost and similar screen size.

Gamoc,

Don’t get me wrong I’m sure it’ll find a small market, it just could’ve had a bigger one with comparatively little effort and now the device it could’ve been will never exist. I had hopes for this as I’d expected it to stream from Now, but it just doesn’t for no reason beyond “CBA” really.

SmoothIsFast,

The thing is they are only targeting that small market for PS5 gamers, they don’t want to compete in the handheld market and possibly loose those customers who would be happy with just a ps5 remote play experience vs a better more expensive device. I get it, they don’t have to have as many competitors and it makes it slightly cheaper versus the non dedicated competitors giving them a niche area to sell to.

BorgDrone,

Yeah, and convenience used to be putting multiple different functions in one device

Yeah, I always use my Swiss army knife in the kitchen, way more convenient than using my chef’s knife, because it combines so many functions.

Convenience is often a tool that does one thing and does it really well. Combining multiple functions almost always complicates things.

I used to own a combination microwave/oven/steamer/grill that I replaced with a simple microwave, as I rarely if ever used any of those other functions. Guess which one is more convenient to use?

Compare a simple black and white laser printer with an all-in-one printer/scanner/fax combo an tell me which one is more convenient.

Gamoc,

I’d say the printer/scanner/fax combo is more convenient the second you either need to scan something or find yourself in the 1980s and need to send a fax.

It’s kinda absurd to think Sony can’t put more than one feature into this £200 device without over complicating it. There’s no reason it couldn’t stream from PS Now, all the hardware it needs is already there. It’s just the bare minimum and much of the potential was squandered.

Metallinatus,
@Metallinatus@lemmy.ml avatar

A handheld that can only stream games from a home console is anything but convenient.

BorgDrone,

On the contrary, it’s super convenient. You turn it on, it connects, you play.

SmoothIsFast,

They do sell like $5 phone clips for controllers now a days as some mobile games are adding more controller support. But if for you an extra inch or two of screen real estate for the display is worth $200 then that’s your position, it just seems like the market share for that will be pretty damn niche. Like the nvidia shield I don’t expect it to be around for to long so if you do want this you better get one while they make em but know once the ps5 is done support for this will die out as well.

SmoothIsFast,

My phone is nearly a 7in screen, I could Bluetooth connect a Playstation controller and have the exact same functionality, using the hardware I already have. I get that if you don’t have a phone with a bigger screen then this becomes more of a proposition as getting a newer device with a larger screen is gonna be north of $1k USD, so spending $200 to get a portable display and extra controller in a sense is not that bad value wise. I do see where people are seeing it being wasteful as other devices are capable just not at the same level, the only thing I’m wondering is how big is the market of people who wouldn’t rather get a $5 phone holder for their ps5 controller and just use their phone. I see a couple people in this thread here but if most realized they could get a similar experience for $5 for a plastic phone clip would this really look as enticing?

BorgDrone,

My phone is nearly a 7in screen

Assuming an iPhone Pro Max, with a 6.7” 19,5:9 screen, the 8” 16:9 on the PSPortal has 60% more surface area.

SmoothIsFast,

Correct but that screen real-estate isn’t the biggest issue as you generally have the phone and controller fairly close to your eyes, at an optimal viewing distance. Plus, I can stream up to 4k on my device or 1080p at 120fps if I wanted to stream from my pc. Think monitor vs TV gaming. Viewing distance is much more important than screen size on its own.

kratoz29,

I’m considering getting this even though I already have a Steam Deck.

I recommend you to do some research, it might not be that good for the only thing this gadget can do.

aCosmicWave,

Most of my games are on PlayStation. The Steam Deck is clearly the more powerful and capable device, but it is also more expensive and I have no need for any of the extra features. I love the ergonomics of the PS Portal (even though it looks silly), the haptics, the huge screen, and it all comes with a seamless integration into the PlayStation ecosystem. Plus there is no need to take the case off of my phone every time I want to play it unlike the Backbone.

It’s definitely not for everyone but they call it a DadStation for a reason ☺️.

optissima,

Someone is trying to justify their purchase… check back in a year

aCosmicWave,

You are right. Even though I’ve had an absolute blast using the PS Portal daily ever since i got it I have made the difficult decision to return it because the internet told me that it’s actually not good.

ShitOnABrick,
@ShitOnABrick@lemmy.world avatar

Prehaps an ayn loki zero might be up your valley as its a full fledged budget steamdeck type pc for the same price as a ps portal this might be perfect for you as you could have playstations desktop streaming app installed and some desktop games that’ll run on the meager loki zeros hardware I hear it does a good job emulating games upto ps2 games

www.ayntec.com/products/loki-zero-preorder

Or of course a full fledged steamdeck

objectionist,
@objectionist@lemmy.world avatar

steam deck is single-handedly the best gaming purchase i think i’ve ever made

alienanimals, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Activisions’ executives should be fired.

quams69, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

It is absolutely incredible how video games publishers will do anything to not publish new video games. Just doing any hair brained boondoggle that comes to their oxygen deprived brains.

Omegamanthethird, do gaming w Are there too many video game remakes and remasters?

No

Bonesince1997, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Things change so fast these companies won’t keep up. They late.

amio, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Privacy issues aside, this is such a fundamentally stupid idea. As if you aren't a current or prospective player of games you follow, anyway.

BudgieMania, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Letting anyone with a "horse in the race" do this would be silly. It would end up like how MSoft recommends you Edge when you interact with another browser, but even more stupid; "Hey you are watching Resident Evil 4! That means you like action games! I have a great one to suggest: CoD MW3!"

Also if you read the thing it gets even sillier

uses that data to dynamically recommend a video game for the user to play, generate a video game for the user to play, or modify content of the video game being played, as the user experiences the video stream or broadcast video.

This has the same DNA of those claims that video game NFTs would be magical things that would be shared between games without any issue. Is it too much to ask that the discourse about the industry is somewhat rooted in actual immediate reality? "oh it sees that you are watching FFXIV and generates a new dungeon in WoW based on what's happening on stream" like no. Come on. Dial it back to the current decade.

More specifically, there is a need to contextually integrate video games being concurrently experienced with a video stream

No. There isn't. Nobody wants to be "recommended" something else while watching their stream of choice. If you want to use streams to bombard me with your "hey hey our game just came out" there is already a way to do it, it's called "pay top streamers to pretend your new game is the best thing for an hour".

Also I was checking what my man has patented in the past and his level of taste and priorities is "Wanted to make a Silent Hill Ascension before Silent Hill Ascension":

Systems and methods for enabling audience participation in multi-player video game play sessions
Patent number: 10596471
Abstract: The present specification describes systems and methods that enable non-players to participate as spectators in online video games and, through a collective voting mechanism, determine the occurrence of certain events or contents of the gameplay in real time. Game event options are generated and presented to non-players. A specific one of the game event options is then selected based on a collective vote of the non-players. Once selected, the specific one or more of the game event options are then generated as actual gaming events and incorporated into a video game stream that is transmitted to the players as part of the gameplay session. In this manner, non-players may be able to directly affect the course of gameplay.
Type: Grant
Filed: August 3, 2018
Date of Patent: March 24, 2020

Like, nah. Go take your cafeteria napkin ideas somewhere else you buffoon.

Zahille7,

The description of the patent makes it seem like twitch chat integration, which is already a thing in a lot of games like Cities: Skylines.

BudgieMania,

Wait you are totally right, I thought it was merely about big time stuff like where the story goes next, but when you look in the details, it is so wide that it is also basically a patent for twitch crowd control style integration:

Optionally, the plurality of game event options include an occurrence of one or more earthquakes, meteor showers, storms, rain, wind, fires, lightning, or other natural disasters.

Optionally, the plurality of game event options include a placement or existence of armor, weapons, treasure, or other resources available to specific players in the gameplay session.

and so on with more of this type of stuff.

Uuuuh didn't Crowd Control launch before the filing of that patent? I'm kinda lost here.

Zahille7,

I found this article about Twitch and Warp World, the company that developed Crowd Control.

This particular bit is interesting to me:

Warp World reported that in October 2017, the month they launched, over a million Bits passed through the Crowd Control Extension.

BudgieMania,

Damn I must be misunderstanding something then because that makes it sound like my man gets to be called an inventor and activision gets to potentially benefit financially for what amounts to describing in legalese the utility after someone else did all the real technical work of making it a reality

which would be kinda fucked

icermiga, (edited )

I would hate it if games changed based on what they thought I wanted - I want to choose my content but if the content morphs underneath my hands according to a marketing algorithm then it’s not respecting my choice. There seems to be some assumption that each person enjoys exactly one emotion.

I’m pretty sure people can like more than one thing. Like if I’m playing Resident Evil and some algo decides that because I watched When Harry Met Sally last week, it should replace the zombies with awkward dates 🤣.

icermiga,

Gaming NFTs are a great idea. If I’m playing chess I want to be able to transfer over my items from other games, like a portal gun, to enhance the experience. NFT technology will permanently improve the gaming industry.

Zink, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Advertisements? Targeted to individual people?

Brilliant!

fckreddit, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

The title sounds like a MBA talking out of his arse. It doesn’t have any value whatsoever.

grumpo_potamus, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch

Is this really a problem for people - not knowing about new game releases? Especially for things you may already be interested in watching outside of a video game? If someone is a fan of sports, racing, etc. it seems they can find new releases in those genres pretty easily already.

The article mentions creating a custom game or in-game items based on the content… Wow, great - more in-game hats. And I bet that generated game is going to be top quality.

echo64,

Yes, or rather its a problem for publishers trying to get their product noticed. Marketing in the past decade has fast become the most expensive part of making things, just getting people to know your thing exists, yeah its hard.

It’s not a problem for people, people don’t care. Companies do.

On the other side of things, it’s why we have so many sequels and franchises now, it’s much easier to market franchises. No one can make a Call of Duty killer, primarily because even if you make a game people would love, it’s hard to get people to even know.

MrMcGasion,

It’s also arguably a bigger problem for the bad publishers like Activision, who have been trashing their own reputations for so long that even if they buy a huge “World Premiere” ad spot at the Game Awards, once I see it’s an Activision game, my brain just automatically turns off any interest I might have had in a game, because I know that even if the trailer makes it look interesting, it will ultimately probably be a disappointment due to greedy management. There are plenty of good indie games to play, and if and when Activision does publish a good game, I’m much more likely to believe word of mouth of the people I trust, than the recommendations of publishers, who are generally just out to push a $90 deluxe edition preorder of whatever is coming out next week.

makyo,

And even if they did know about it they wouldn’t have room next to CoD on their harddrive

Carighan, do games w Activision wants to recommend games to you based on the livestreams you watch
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

Damn, I’d get not a single recommendation. That’d be wild. 🤣

MolochAlter, do games w Former Mass Effect lead writer says new narrative-focused studio will "avoid painting ourselves in a corner"

To write yourself into a corner you should be writing in the first place.

What Walters does hardly qualifies.

Cheskaz, do gaming w Are there too many video game remakes and remasters?

Yes, if it meant that Sony made PlayStation exclusive games available on PC immediately, rather than upon remastering.

No if it meant I’d just never get to play any of thos games.

Trainguyrom, do gaming w Are there too many video game remakes and remasters?

I’d argue that video games need remakes and remasters far more than movies do. Video game technologies change a lot in 10-15 years, so a remake/remaster is an opportunity to improve controls and fix issues with running the game on hardware that hadn’t been concieved at the time of the game’s release. Plenty of old games have severe bugs, outdated controls or general issues with newer hardware (can’t handle widescreen monitors, buttons don’t scale for high resolutions, etc.) which can make replaying them a pain.

You sit down to watch a 25 year old movie and it’s pretty easy to watch, but you sit down to play a 25 year old game and it’s going to vary wildly if you can even get it to run in the first place, let alone if it’ll run well

GrindingGears, do gaming w Are there too many video game remakes and remasters?

Yes. Just move on and make new games worth playing, instead of rehashing the past. And more often than not, fucking it up in the process. Only our modern society would accept and accommodate a remade game that’s 100% worse than the original.

  • Wszystkie
  • Subskrybowane
  • Moderowane
  • Ulubione
  • rowery
  • giereczkowo
  • esport
  • tech
  • Spoleczenstwo
  • lieratura
  • fediversum
  • slask
  • Blogi
  • Pozytywnie
  • muzyka
  • nauka
  • sport
  • FromSilesiaToPolesia
  • krakow
  • niusy
  • Cyfryzacja
  • kino
  • LGBTQIAP
  • opowiadania
  • Psychologia
  • motoryzacja
  • turystyka
  • MiddleEast
  • zebynieucieklo
  • test1
  • Archiwum
  • NomadOffgrid
  • Wszystkie magazyny