PlayStation 5 is still dominating the current console generation, but the PS6 isn’t as far away as you may think.
Sony’s next console is expected to go into manufacturing in 2027 for an end-of-year launch, but it could break the mould somewhat with a handheld component.
After the success of the Switch (and its successor), and handheld PCs like the Steam Deck, Sony has been rumored to jump back into the handheld space for the first time in over a decade, and while we wouldn’t count on the PS6 being a hybrid system, we can see Sony pushing something portable.
It’s a very different world from 2011, though, when Sony launched the PlayStation Vita – so what can it do differently this time?
Days gone by
To understand Sony’s potential play here, we need to go back a ways. The PlayStation Portable (or PSP) was an absolute delight that, had it had an extra analog stick, could have been a bona fide competitor to home consoles.
It launched in 2004 (at least in Japan), and I can’t tell you the number of hours I put into Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 Remix and Def Jam: Fight for NY on the thing. By the time the Vita rolled around in 2011 (again, in Japan) and 2012 in the rest of the world, the world was different.
The iPhone had put a web browser, an app store, and much more in our hands, and kicked off a smartphone arms race that continues to this day. Android was beginning to find its footing, too, and while commuters enjoyed playing the nifty games on their phones, they didn’t necessarily want to play a full Uncharted adventure on the train.
The Vita could have made for an incredible PSP follow-up, had there not been such a gap between the two. Sony essentially ran the same playbook more than half a decade apart, and just couldn’t find an answer to the smartphone market.
There’s an argument to be made that it was Nintendo that found that equilibrium with the first Switch. The console was hardly cheap, but it was cheaper than buying a home console and a dedicated handheld, and you wouldn’t need to change games when leaving the house. In many ways, it felt like Sony walked in some ways so that Nintendo could run, and while that might be hyperbolic, Nintendo has certainly found itself in a race now.
The company’s latest console, 2025’s Nintendo Switch 2, is essentially a beefier Switch, and it needs to be given the rise of handheld PC alternatives to consoles.
The new State of Play
With that (very truncated) history lesson out of the way, the landscape is completely different now. And, in the cyclical nature of things, Sony running that same old PSP playbook might not be the worst idea: Give us a console that can play console-quality games, and give us the games to play on it.
Of course, that’s pretty much what Nintendo is doing, too. Nintendo knows that its ‘secret sauce’ lies in exclusives, so it knows you’ll buy a Switch 2 for Pokémon, Mario, Zelda, or anything else you can only get.
Unlike Microsoft, a company intent on putting its games just about anywhere, Sony has its own staple of IP, but if you start making the next God of War title a handheld exclusive, people will lose their minds – unless it’s the same PlayStation 6 game you can take elsewhere.
That’s why it feels like anything the PS6 does do in terms of a handheld will be tied to a bigger system to continue playing once you’re home. Longtime leaker Moore’s Law is Dead has suggested that PlayStation’s recent push for its low-power mode is likely to help games run on some kind of PS6 handheld.
“It is becoming glaringly obvious that Low-Power mode is a Trojan Horse for getting PS6 Handheld support ready before its launch, and they honestly seemed a bit annoyed at how few devs directly support it so far,” one source told him.
While you could argue that the Steam Deck and other handheld PCs like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally buck this trend since they’re not hybrid in nature, there’s an argument that they are – letting you play a ‘good enough’ version of your favorite game knowing you can log onto your PC or Xbox when you get home to pick up via cloud saves.
To paraphrase The Joker in The Dark Knight, “there’s no going back, you’ve changed things.” The Switch kicked off an arms race to marry portability and power efficiency in a way we’ve not seen in gaming for a while, with manufacturers like Lenovo, Asus, MSI, and many more going head-to-head to eke out a drop more power from their hardware without sacrificing battery life.
Is Sony equipped for that kind of competition this time around? I’d argue they’ve got a better chance than most. I think we were all surprised when Switch 2 was confirmed to be employing some semblance of DLSS 4.0, given Nintendo’s never been on the bleeding edge of hardware development, but we’re talking about Sony here.
The Vita had many shortcomings, sure, but it also had a great OLED display in 2011. This is the company behind the Blu-Ray, which incorporated a DVD player into the PS2, and that was the only manufacturer to drop a mid-gen refresh this time around with the PS5 Pro.
Then there’s an ongoing partnership with AMD, which is helping improve upscaling on the PS5 Pro and is only likely to help find more efficiency gains down the back of the proverbial sofa.
There’s also an argument that Sony already has something of an ecosystem in place. The PlayStation Portal, while not capable of playing PS5 games natively, has a sleek UI and dovetails perfectly with the new console, offering a comfortable form factor and a big display. Is it really as simple as taking what’s already there and shoving the guts of a console into it?
It’s hard to say, but Sony recently rolled out the option to stream games directly to it without a console, showing they’ve certainly not forgotten about the 2023 device.
More storage, more problems?
In many ways, Sony’s biggest opponent here is Sony itself. The company has pushed two handheld consoles with proprietary memory cards that cost a fortune for small gains, but that kind of shtick doesn’t fly these days.
microSD cards can be slotted into your handheld PC, and while Nintendo has copped some flak for its insistence on microSD Express cards, it’s still likely easier to get than the Sony Memory Stick Duos of yesteryear (ask your parents, kids).
Maybe, though, Sony is coming round to the idea of letting users pick their own solutions. The PS5 eschewed the pricey memory card-style format of the Xbox Series S and X and allows users to install their own drives under the hood, while the PS4 had support for USB hard drives.
If Sony can allow microSD card functionality from the jump with a potential PS6 handheld, we might see it make the kind of waves the Vita could only dream of.
