Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games | Hacker News Reader

Sony's Playstation Portal hacked, can now emulate PSP games

overkill.wtf

220 pointsrcarmo118 comments

Why not just sell something like the Portal as open in the first place?

There are no Portal games to worry about protecting. What's the percentage in locking it down?

If they're selling it at cost or at a loss (I don't know if they are) as a value-add to the PS5 then they wouldn't want people buying it just to play emulators.

Notably they still sell retro games on PSN.

As long as retro sales exceed the cost to lock the device down you will see stuff like this. I recall one time paying for FF7 which I played on PS3/PSP. That game alone probably makes it worth it.

Nice. I played they FF7 on my hacked PSP.

Hacked PSP was a great time to be a gamer. Played through all the greats I missed like Harvest Moon, a bunch of Final Fantasy, some mega man. Nostalgia overload thinking about it.

Plus it was cool to be around for a time when the hack to get boot access was as simple as popping the battery pack open and penciling in one line on the PCB.

As I recall Sony just forgot to enable the signature checks on the PSPs 1.00 firmware, and they could be bypassed on 1.50 by giving the executable a malformed filename. Simpler times.

My favorite was the tiff exploit to install virtual CFWs by scrolling through an album of digital chickens. Good times

They still call PlayStation homebrew enablers ‘HEN’ :)

I was in before then, when the jailbreak route was loading a specific save file in Grand Theft Auto, Liberty City Stories. Great game as well.

And the retro games on PSN are very dissapointing.

I would love to have Tekken 3 on the PS 5 just because it is convenient. Instead they only offer Tekken 2, which is only available via the PSN subscription.

I’d modify that to “as long as the IP owner wishes retro sales exceeded the cost to lock the device down.” After all, lots of games are completely unpublished today, making $0 in sales, but they’re just as zealous about stopping you from accessing or playing those ones too.

A reasonable compulsory license fee (all paid to the copyright office, none to the corp) and/or a revocation of copyright and entry to public domain for failure to maintain published access would be good sticks.

The argument usually goes like this, but has zero evidence in real life. Even PS2 which was quite infamous for the amount of unlocks and hacks, sold really well and was very successful. I think business do that not to protect sales or anything but to appease shareholders.

You misspelled appealing to game developers and publishers. Most companies will not invest on a platform that makes it too easy to rip them off.

You mean like gog?

gog is a store, PC/Mac is the platform.

Exactly. Meaning opening system doesn't reduce investments, they foster competition. In theory, people should not consider developing for pcs because they are really easy to rip off, and well, that is not what we see.

Gog was born as a bargain-bin store for products that required zero investment and were already widely pirated, it was only upsides as far as publishers were concerned. I know it's different now, but I doubt their no-drm policy is as iron-clad on new titles ar it was on old ones - it's probably left to publishers to do some traditional checks on their own, rather than using a platform sdk.

The point is that you do not actually want sales that do not compensate for the loss. Imagine the PS5 let you run arbitrary code on the GPU and also happened to be the best value for the money. It would end up in some compute farm, not living rooms, and Sony would pay for the privilege.

Then they should not sell at cost or a loss (is that even legal?). Boom, fixed in a decent way.

Of course selling a console at a loss is legal. If selling products at a loss was illegal this entire Hacker News thing wouldn’t exist.

I wouldn’t call that “fixed in a decent way.” The subsidy of the hardware is a benefit for many consumers who choose game consoles.

I mean, it's Sony. How long did it take them to get out of the Memory Stick business. There isn't an open system they haven't tried to compete with with their closed, locked-in alternatives.

Are you going to buy a PS6 if you build up a games collection on Steam?

If you want a game console company to sell a totally open console, that’s just a willing misunderstanding of the game market on your part.

Even the Steam Deck as the most open commercial console on the market is pretty clever in that it doesn’t stop you from using competing software stores, but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work. Getting my free copy of Control on the Epic Games Store to work on the console was something that took me a significant amount of time. I could imagine a less technical person being completely unable to do it, but if you owned the game on Steam you just click a button and play.

In my opinion, if Sony wasn’t being supremely lazy they would have made the Portal with AMD x86 hardware similar to the Steam Deck and designed it to natively play your PS5/PS4 library on the go instead of making it a streaming-only device.

>but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work

This is far more related to their lack of Linux support, and forcing launcher usage via Steam for some games (EA, Ubisoft) than Valve making it difficult on purpose. Nothing stopping you from using Desktop Mode to do whatever you want on the device otherwise.

Nothing is also stopping you from putting Windows on the Steam Deck, Valve even provides drivers for you to do it!

My point would be that a very small percentage of users will ever go through that effort, and the Windows experience is so obviously inferior with its lack of tailored UI that it’s not going to be very attractive.

Valve knows that the lowest friction activity is buying a game in Steam Deck OS and clicking play.

> but you still need to invest significant effort into getting them to work.

This isn't true for things that actually run on GNU/Linux. Installing the itch.io launcher is as easy as going to desktop mode, opening discover, navigating to the itch launcher, and clicking install.

My point would be that a large percentage of Steam Deck buyers will never even enter desktop mode or do so by accident and leave immediately.

I wonder if customer support and warranty is part of the calculation. If they sell open platform – they will have to provide support and potential warranty for it.

But I guess that most people are not interested in open platform, only tinkers like us are. And if they make it officially closed platform, they don't have to deal with our complaints, when something does not work, or more likely underperforms.

News like this makes me so nostalgic for the PSP homebrew and "hacking" scene of the 00's. It's what got me into software in the first place.

Same! The PSP was the first mobile device I used with WiFi and a web browser.

Ha, that's how I got into the games industry and programming in general - I started coding little homebrew games for various competitions online when I was 14-15, then years later actually brought my PSP to a job interview with a games company and showed them what I made when I was a teenager, and I got the job.

I wonder how many of us learned how to program on the PSP. It's crazy to think how transformative this was for my life in the long run. It's also the same reason why I know Lua but went straight to C++ after that.

I wish I could bottle up the magic that was the PSP homebrew scene and give it to kids today. I'm guessing Minecraft mods are the closest modern version.

The homebrew scene still exists today, just moved consoles.

I was just playing around with the Xbox Dev Mode this weekend and trying out different emulators.

I wish I could say I actually learned to program on it haha. I mostly just flailed around and acted like I was programming back then. But it definitely started me down the path I'm on now.

Same for me! It was like a brick of programming in the face. If I recall correctly, I owe my gratitude to someone called "DarkAlex" on the "PSP-Hacks" website/forum for getting me interested.

My reason for starting with that scene was to play my "backed up" games but I remember screaming with joy when I got a C++ program onto the PSP which displayed some colours and bars. I could change them with the buttons and joystick.

What's the market for a (non-hacked) device like this, when the Switch and the Deck already exist? Surely the appeal of a handheld is that you can bring it with you on the train, airplane, etc. What am I missing?

You could use it remotely, but I doubt it would feel great due to latency and bandwidth.

In home, a great use is to play when the TV the PS5 is hooked up to is in use. You can play and someone else can watch a movie.

Also the Switch and Deck don’t play PS5 games you already own. And both are more expensive.

It’s 100% a companion device. If you owned a deck you could just run the PS remote app on it too.

There’s at least one open source remote play client that could work on the Steam Deck, and the official one if booted into windows.

Indeed I recently replayed The Last of Us Part 2 (PS4 Pro) using chiaki on my Steam Deck. Software also supports PS5.

I thought it was to play PS5 in the bathroom.

I have Logitech's version of this (https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/cloud-gaming/cloud-...), one of the earlier entrants into the field, and I use it both at home and when traveling, though only when there's good wifi (so no trains or planes).

In conjunction with GeForce Now, it's better than the Steam link in a few ways for my use case: better screen (1080p and slightly bigger), quite a bit lighter and easier to hold, no fan noise, no heat, much better graphics (since it's not running on a local APU, but a 4080 in the cloud). At the time, it was also significantly cheaper than the Steam Deck, although that's gotten cheaper over time too. There are also a bunch of similar $200 ish streaming Android handhelds if price is the primary consideration.

There are a few downsides, though: Its control inputs are way cheaper than that of the Steam Deck and it feels like crap and has no gyro input. It can't run local games (obviously) except cheap Android junk like Torchlight Infinite. It's co-developed with Tencent, which means China is probably spying on all your games (and your Google login).

But overall... it's fine for what it is? I mostly just play Path of Exile on it (and hopefully Diablo 4 soon) before falling asleep in bed.

I actually got a Steam Deck at one point, tried it for a couple days, and then sold it. It just wasn't as ergonomic as the GCloud for casual play. It was a pain waiting for the OS to update, games to patch and then slowly load, etc.

Yep. I got one recently too: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/02/03/2000

But you're wrong about the gyro input. I have it working with Yuzu -- I am very happy with it, and am running Steam on Bazzite (https://bazzite.gg) inside Proxmox.

Oh neat! Thanks for the information.

> running Steam on Bazzite (https://bazzite.gg) inside Proxmox.

Does this mean you can pass the gyro controls onto Steam Link or GeForce Now or some such? I have no interest in retro games, but it would be awesome to use gyro aiming for shooters...

I can do it for Yuzu (there's a note on the post). Right now Steam Link doesn't support it. Moonlight says it does, but I haven't gotten it to work with any Steam game (or at all, really). I suspect that would only work in Windows, but haven't bothered to try.

As far as local games, if you're into retro gaming the G-Cloud is also powerful enough to play PSP games at 2x or 3x resolution (as well as anything else you can find emulators for up to and including the PS1 and N64 generation of consoles). I got a G-Cloud around when it first released and still use it quite a bit for both emulation and streaming, though I use Steam Link to play games running on my desktop instead of GeForce Now.

If you mean emulation on handhelds:

Multiple vendors with multiple new models per year, different quality and price levels. Some come with Linux based systems others with android or even Windows. So you can choose between a selection of models for roughly 50-100USD, 150-300 or from a section that is even more expensive than a steamdeck but also provide more on some or all fronts for they bigger price tag.

There are some devices that are basically the same concept, just in new generation, but there are also many that are more unique. The space seems to require it, button layouts or screen ratio / resolution play a mayor role how well the emulation experience is, but there are so many different consoles over the years that they can't just do one thing fits all, especially if they want to keep it a handheld or sometimes pocketable. There was just a windows device released with clamshell dual screen design like the DS, but thicker to run basically everything on a modern AMD Windows setup.

The portal wasn't an unknown device in that bubble, bc some people use there emulation handhelds for streaming, as in in-home streaming or like the nvidia shield, cloud gaming streaming, often Xbox game pass these days.

There is a whole section of controllers that make a smartphone a portal/switch/steamdeck like device, by holding it in the middle and connect via usb c, lightning or Bluetooth. There is a good set of emulators for phone, snapdragon is quite good in emulating switch for example, but there is a also next to streaming, android native games that support controllers or apps that produce virtual touch inputs to map the controller.

There is also a scene that makes handhelds like the DSi, psp, vita, etc emulators who work quite well if you want to put in the effort to set it up.

I recommend retro game corps on yt for a start, he doesn't do quick bait or mind numbing flash cuts.

Supposedly, the market for it is people who want to play their PS5 but can't because somebody else in the household is occupying their TV. But that begs the question of why they wouldn't just go buy a bedroom TV instead and move the PS5 into the bedroom?

Other possible markets would be people trying to collect a complete set of PS5 accessories and people impulse buying it without thinking about whether it'd actually be useful. Of course the people buying it right now are mainly the scalpers and Sony likely produced very small quantities to ensure it'd sell out and get them positive press.

> But that begs the question of why they wouldn't just go buy a bedroom TV instead and move the PS5 into the bedroom?

I like the shows my wife watches but not always enough to want to dedicate my full attention to them. I'll often play the Switch while side-watching Downton Abbey type shows with her.

The Switch library has limited interest to me though so something like this provides more options.

There isn't one. You have more business sense than the multiple Sony gaming execs who let this stupid thing go to market.

Its a cool hack but I dont' see why anyone would go through the trouble when you can do the same with a steam deck (no hacking required)

there's also the neo which will come out https://neo.manjaro.org/

all the same benefits and without having to play this cat and mouse game with a company who just wants to turn you into a stream of income.

Maybe they just like the specific form factor or Sony controller more than the steam deck's.

The moment the hack is public Sony will release an update to block it. And so the game of cat and mouse continues.

this will always be true of jailbreaks as they fundamentally break the security of the device. this means that it can be used for cool things like shown in the article but it could also be used maliciously by an attacker to completely take over the device which the manufacturer should definitely patch.

After the last update to my expensive DSLR broke third-party batteries for no reason beyond pettiness and greed, at this point I trust random hackers more than I trust Sony.

*the battery ruining was not mentioned in the changelog for the update.

It's a shame that such exploits are needed in the first place, when allowing developer mode to be toggled like a normal android device (ideally easier than on an xbox/quest) would be enough for most of these cool things.

It's also a strangely perverse incentive to stay on an exploitable firmware if you want to hack your own hardware.

these exploits are never closed for the security of their users, though the changelogs might often claim that’s the case.

It’s always about licensing costs for the manufacturer. Every game or application released for consoles (and phones alike) have to pay a licensing fee to the maintainers of that platform to publish on that platform. If you can jailbreak the device then you can publish software to that device without paying Sony, Apple or whoever else.

The security aspect is just a convenient side effect from locking people in. But if it was only security that these manufacturers were concerned about then they’d have found a way to allow people to tinker with their hardware without needing to crack any security mechanisms in the first place.

You can see this concern for licensing being a big thing in consoles as early as the Gameboy and MegaDrive (Genesis). And back then security wasn’t even a concern.

Depends on the nature of the jailbreak, some of them are unpatchable if they attack the system early enough in the boot flow. Those are much less common than they used to be though, the Switch is obviously a notable example of a permanent jailbreak but it's been some time since Sony or Microsoft made a blunder like that.

OTOH who knows how much of the Portal was actually designed by Sony, since it's running Android rather than SIEs usual FreeBSD it might have been outsourced or derived from some generic ODM design.

I did enjoy this cat and mouse game when I got my first PSP. That was quite a few years ago.

That wasn't so much a cat and mouse game, rather a bunch of hackers playing keep away with Sony's hat. The PSP's security was "defeated" literally from day one since the v1 firmware launched unsigned executables, then after that there was exploit after exploit, then the whole pandora battery thing and finally the host keys got leaked and it was game over.

I bought my PSP at launch and it spent the vast majority of it's lifespan with some kind of custom firmware installed.

PSP was the golden age for me.

I started university the year it launched in the UK but I already had a Japanese import PSP1000 I'd bought the year before.

Studying CSEE a few friends and I were all over the hacking and homebrew and wrote a few apps/tools ourselves.

We spent all of the boring lectures gaming on our PSPs, modifying them, dumping and swapping games etc.

Later we got Compaq iPaQs and modified those, installed Linux etc and dreamed of a Linux phone, then came the first iPhone, I imported one of those the year before it released here (UK) and everyone who saw it in the EE department were amazed.

Then of course came Android, the dream came true. Fast forward over a decade and Google has well and truly put a bolt through the head of that dream.

It was a different time in my life, but I definitely feel it's (tech/gadgets) all a lot less interesting these days.

That might not be true since there is no need for Sony code < their means of control > if you can replace it with AOSP & the Android remote play client...

It's stupid that in 2024, Sony is still like this :(

Meanwhile Microsoft has gone the other direction, opening up many Xbox games for crossplay/cross-save with Windows, partnering with GeForce Now to offer Game Pass games there (in addition to their own xCloud, which is total crap by comparison because it streams from actual Xbox consoles), and they don't care where you end up streaming it to (including web browsers).

In 2023 I looked into these options. The Game Pass games are not compatible with proton and they did not support streaming to Firefox running on Linux. It wasn't exactly an open ecosystem.

Not open, but more so than Sony's.

Also, have you tried GeForce Now? Not sure if it works on Linux/Firefox. It runs on ChromeOS at least, so if you're okay with that distro, it ought to be a much better experience than GamePass (but only a subset of GamePass games are supported).

GeForce Now does not support Firefox. GamePass also works on ChromeOS.

It's so weird. I thought they were just streaming a video; wonder what specifically Firefox doesn't support?

It does, with a little tweaking.

Microsoft designed the Xbox in such a way to be very resistant to exploits. I'd have no doubt if there was a viable one in the wild they could patch, they would.

They also only agreed to put their games on GeForce Now to be able to buy Activision.

And Windows is still a Microsoft platform. They don't benefit as much from game sales but they do still benefit overall in keeping gamers there instead of migrating to PS5 or Linux.

All of the above is true, but the end effect is still that it's easier to crossplay Microsoft stuff than Sony's or Nintendo's. Do I wish everything were released on all platforms natively? Sure, but that's not my call. Nintendo is super resistant to releasing its stuff on other platforms. Sony is getting a bit better about that (like Horizons and Helldivers coming out on PC), but they still use terrible anti-cheats, don't allow GFN, etc. Annoying =/

As a gamer stuck on a Mac, I find GamePass & Steam + GeForce Now offers a better experience than Crossover/Whisky games. It's even better than native Apple Silicon ports (like BG3 or Stray) because the GFN GPUs are so much more powerful, and can use the latest DLSS. My M2 Max doesn't come close.

Proton is pretty amazing (for the few days I had a Steam Deck), but AFAIK it doesn't work on Mac? If it ever gets ported, or if Asahi ever matures enough, I'd love to be able to use that to play other Windows games not on the streaming services.

If running a moonlight client on one becomes possible, I might be actually interested in buying one, just for casual gaming at home. The Steam Deck looks great but is pretty expensive and a little overkill when I could just stream from my desktop to a less powerful device.

FYI you can probably just use a Logitech GCloud (https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/products/cloud-gaming/cloud-...), Razer Edge (https://www.razer.com/mobile-handhelds/razer-edge), Abxylute (https://abxylute.com/products/abxylute-handheld-console), or any generic Android portable gaming thing to do that.

Not sure if you even need Moonlight; wouldn't Steam Link work too?

Personally I use a GCloud and stream from GeForce Now, and that works great.

The GCloud and the Razer Edge are both significantly more expensive than the PS Portal if I recall correctly though. The Abxylute does seem similar in price, although I'm guessing the PS Portal likely has better controls (being essentially a Dualsense split in half) and maybe a better screen.

Also yeah, Steam Link would work too but Moonlight/Sunshine generally seems to work better.

I see. Yeah, $200 seems like a great price point for that device and build quality. Too bad it's locked to PS games! Just Sony being Sony, sigh.

It doesn't even play games though; it streams them from your console over wifi.

So's the GCloud, and I paid like $250 for that. At least the PS Portal has better ergonomics, and maybe the screen is nicer too, hard to tell from the pictures.

It’s a streaming device to play the games from your PS5 remotely.

Just an accessory.

Right, which is why it's a bummer (not that it doesn't play games locally, but that it doesn't even work with other streaming services like GeForce Now, GamePass/xCloud, Shadow, etc.).

The "streaming only handheld" isn't uncommon anymore (like in the GP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39436797), but most of those are service-agnostic and let you pick where you want to stream from. The Portal is locked to PS, as far as I can tell... not sure if it even supports PSNow (Sony's cloud streaming solution)?

You can get second-hand G Cloud devices on eBay without a lot of trouble - that's what I did, and it was pretty cheap considering the excellent screen: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/02/03/2000

Why the downvote? This is completely factual and on point.

Times like these, I wish we had informational modifiers to the downvotes and upvotes, like Slashdot's "+1 Insightful" or "-1 Offtopic", etc.

Sometimes I wonder if there's just random vote fuzzing going on too, lol, whether by actual bots or just some sort of obfuscation algorithm. Some of my posts go up or down mere seconds after posting, seemingly too quick for anyone to read... shrug.

That's what I do too: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2024/02/03/2000

There are many devices that can do this that are cheaper than a Steam Deck and have great screens and controls. They come in all shapes and sizes.

I'll recommend Retro Game Corps as a great gateway into this scene: https://www.youtube.com/c/retrogamecorps

If you just want a huge list of what's available: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1irg60f9qsZOkhp0cwOU7...

I'll plug my own channel as well as I own many of these devices: https://www.youtube.com/@forthenext

Very impressive spreadsheet, I appreciate the link.

Just get an Odin 2: https://www.ayntec.com/collections/odin/products/odin-2

Nowadays there are so many great handheld devices specifically optimized for emulation, like the ones from Anbernic, that hacking doesn't seem worth it anymore. There are also hardware button add-ons that convert Android phones or tablets into emulation handhelds, without any hacking.

A common problem with those devices seems to actually be that they work too well, which leads to choice paralysis. If you can play anything, any game ever up to Dreamcast or so, it's hard not to lose interest in any one game quickly.

I still have my original PSP with its discs, and it works like a charm. The build quality is very impressive. I can use it as a plug-in controller for my PC.

Hopefully they are working on supporting remote play from other devices like PC or Xbox! Because the portal is pretty good, it's just locked down to make it get sony a return on selling at a loss.

I would pay money to play a silent hill remaster

no other choice than to emulate it, it seems

I’d love to play silent hill 1 remastered. It was more concrete than 2, and felt more real and meaningful because of it. Also, didn’t finish it, since it was a rental

Give us rentals back while you’re at it, if the larger industry is reading this

Rentals is essentially what modern streaming services are about. You rent the right to view whatever is in their catalog, as long as they have the streaming rights. You will own nothing. Have a happy day.

Firmware patch to negate this in 3, 2, 1...

Cave Johnson, we're done here

As usual, it ends up being about emulators instead of creating new stuff.

There isn't much incentive in making new stuff when it can be shut down by Sony or whatever company at any moment. See A2MR.

It was basically porting emulators instead of actually producing new stuff that proved Sony PS2Linux wasn't worthwhile to produce, thus all the stuff it happened afterwards with Linux on PS3 (which contrary to PS2Linux lacked hardware acceleration), and adopting FreeBSD.

Why create new games for a proprietary platform that users would have to hack instead of just writing it for PC? Homebrew like this is about the challenge or about making existing hardware more useful, porting emulators is an effective way to do that.

Why buy this in first place then? Just use a PC and save the money for something that really matters.

I presume people bought it for its intended usecase, or just as a novelty. I don't think anyone's buying this for emulation, not when there are friendlier options available for the same price. Once they already have it, though...

>>Why create new games for a proprietary platform that users would have to hack instead of just writing it for PC?

Well, PSP(and DS/3DS) homebrew scenes were(and still are) amazing, with many brand new games created from scratch, even though any potential users have to hack their devices in the first place to even try them.

The PSP existed in the short timeframe where all the alternative handheld devices were vastly inferior in terms of specs and cost to perf ratio. The choice between an expensive WinCE PDA that barely had hardware 3D vs the beast that is a hacked PSP was obvious.

Then came Android/ios and bothering with a hacked PSP was no longer worth it for general computing purposes. Running "backups" and emulators prevailed as the only reason to mod a handheld.

Why did it have to be hacked to do this?

Because Sony won't let you run your own code on a product you paid good money for.

Why should they? I get it with a general purpose device like a phone or laptop. But this is a PlayStation accessory for streaming games from a PS5. It doesn't claim to be anything else.

Cool that they've at least got something out of that NOLED device.

Sweet

the audacity, of Sony

I like the concept of the playstation portal, but given its cost similar to a steam deck, wouldn't be better to use that for this purpose?

The Deck is twice the price of the Portal, at minimum. Of course it's also vastly more capable.

They're really not competitors, except for the Deck's use case as a streaming sink from a PC; this is more a "you've got these nice controls and screen, sure would be nice if you could use them for more" situation.

You can buy a refurbished 256 GB Steam Deck for $319, and there’s an app to easily use Remote Play with your PS5! For not too much more money than the PS Portal, you can also download your entire Steam collection + non-Steam games (Minecraft w/ mods + shaders), and have a fully-functioning Linux machine!

Personally, I’m very confused on who exactly the PS Portal is for, but the only important thing is that people are having fun with their games! :)

Plenty of PS people don’t have a Steam library. So that’s not a benefit.

There’s savings to be had over time on Steam sales too, where even AAA titles eventually become dirt cheap. With new games now costing $70, it doesn’t take long for the price difference between a Deck and a Portal (or other similar streaming device) to pay for itself.

If all I wanted was a PS Portal-like experience I think I’d get one of those USB-C phone game controller things to put my smartphone in, which would be cheaper (albeit with a smaller screen), be able to stream from more than just a PS5, and would get better every time I upgrade my phone. At $200, without hacks the PS Portal is a bit too much of a one-trick pony.

I pick up more games every Steam sale that end up getting put into The Backlog™. But when you can buy the entire Arkham series for $10, how can any reasonable person say no??

In all seriousness, Steam sales are the only reason I’ve been able to try out so many new games I’d otherwise not be able to afford, unless I was using Game Pass or something. I grew up on consoles, and didn’t even get into PC gaming until adulthood, but man, Steam has saved/cost me so much money, haha

I returned the Steam Deck when I received it - it was larger than expected and just didn't feel ergonomic. The Portal on the other hand almost feels like holding the DualSense. It's a nice, though limited, device.

>For not too much more money than the PS Portal

60% more money is signifigantly more. That was about the price gap between the 3DS and Vita and we saw how that ended (even though Vita hardware was far superior). And of course we're comparing used tech to brand new MSRB price as well.

To be fair the bigger issue with the Vita was that Sony didn't really support it with games the way the PSP got. I remember watching E3 every year back then and being disappointed that they spent barely any time on Vita stuff.

The price of the console itself would've been fine if the memory cards were cheaper (or if they had just used a regular standard) and if there were as many good exclusives as the PSP had.

It basically just ended up being an indie and niche weeb gaming machine.

I guess it was kind of foreboding of the then upcoming console generations.

Playstation Portal is still better at PS5 Remote Play. Compared to the Deck it's got a 1080p vs 720p display. It's got a controller with all the Dualsense features like resistive analog triggers and fancy rumble.

If the only usage a person is looking for is PS5 Remote Play, then it is superior.

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