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Comment by ejj28 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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

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