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Timeline of Events
2005 – A patent application is filed for a DualShock 3 that docks with PSP. The thinking behind this DS3 was that PS1 and PS2 games would be “ported for execution on the portable gaming platform”. So naturally it would be best if “the user can utilize substantially, if not identically, the same control sequence as used with the console system.” The DS3 dock never came, but the idea of a fully DualShocked handheld persisted.
2006 – Ken Kutaragi files two patent applications. One for a screened game controller, the other for using the controller as a motion-sensing universal remote. This controller is his PSP successor. But unlike the PSP, he didn’t intend for it to have its own games. Gaming on the device was limited to Remote Play, accessing games on a server and playing “mini-games” (e.g., PS Minis and PS Mobile type games) from internal storage. As for the look, he chose a generic screened rectangular slab with enough buttons to get his point across. Not any known design, rather a clean slate to possibly shape a DualShock 3 around. His controller was later abandoned for its derivative, the PS Vita and alternative, the Xperia Play.
2014 – Gaikai’s David Perry is asked the Q: Do you ever wish the Vita had some extra shoulder buttons to match the DualShock?
His A: Yeah, that’s what we need. I agree. It’s funny because you know I hope we get involved in more and more conversations as we become integrated into more things at Sony. These are the kind of conversations I really want to have.
2016 – Kutaragi’s controller application gets updated from ‘abandoned’ status to ‘active’ status. The change in status comes when PS Vita is shaky and on the ropes. By this time, Gaikai is two years deeper into its integration with SIE and DualSense is in development. The climate is ripe for conversations about the need to stream games to a screened DualSense.
May 18, 2019 – A patent application is filed for a ‘Network Connected Controller for Direct to Cloud Gaming’. David Perry is listed as one of its co-inventors, despite leaving SIE in 2017. Sections of the application say that the controller is DualShock-like and connects directly to cloud-gaming servers over Wi-Fi. This application is published two days after Kutaragi’s newly active application is ‘granted’ (i.e., protected against infringement). Project Q’taragi is underway.
May 21, 2019 – Jim Ryan tells investors/analysts that SIE plans to “maximize off-console opportunity” with PS Now. Maximizing PS Now/+Premium’s off-console reach will require streaming to any number of non-Sony and Sony branded devices, Project Q included. There’s no way around it.
2021 – A patent application is filed for a motion-sensing ‘Universal Remote’ feature that builds on Kutaragi’s motion-sensing universal remote feature. One of the co-inventors cited is Rui Yang. Her Linkedin says she was a Sr. System Test Engineer for Qualcomm before eventually moving to Intel where she delivered a Bluetooth solution for Windows and Android platforms. Most interesting though, her application says game consoles are “entertainment systems” and frames the “entertainment system controller” as a “mobile device” that “may run using a variety of different operating systems (e.g., iOS, Android)”. It goes on to say the mobile device “may execute instructions to operate as the universal remote control”. No doubt, Project Q is the target “mobile device” for this feature. Also, the notion that Project Q is a mobile device means it's a target for mobile games that come out of SIE’s mobile strategy.
2023 – Video surfaces of Android running on Project Q. A mobile OS running on a future PS handheld was inevitable. A few years earlier Andrew House recounted a conversation he had with Kutaragi prior to PSP. House’s takeaway: “Ken Kutaragi was notably reluctant about getting into the portable- gaming market. I think there was a lot of arm-twisting that took place from folks like myself from the marketing and sales side of the organization, and one of the reasons I think was that he had genuinely foreseen the rise of smartphones before anyone had heard about the iPhone. I remember him talking about there was going to be a convergence between all forms of media and entertainment into a single communications device. With that in mind, I think he was therefore skeptical about a dedicated handheld market. But that didn’t stop us from having some really good success with PSP at the time, especially in the Japanese market.” In a different conversation about rivals, Kutaragi gave a window into his thinking: “it’s going to be about time consumption and what is closet to human life. It’s not the smartphone itself, it’s communication.” Coincidentally, AT&T says: “Leave your phone. Bring your number.” SIE and AT&T partnered in the past for PS Vita 3G, so it's possible they may have a partnership for Project Q; but this time to certify Project Q as a NumberSync for Android-compatible tablet. Project Q hints at being a near perfect PS-centric convergence of communication, media and entertainment. More telephony than PS Vita; more screened DualShock than Xperia Play. And given Kutaragi's prediction and efforts by many others over nearly two decades to create a fully Dualshocked handheld, it's a device that's been a long time coming.
Beyond 2023
PS Now’s gen one update cycle ends in 2024 (year extrapolated from PS Now’s launch in 2014, David Perry’s view that PS4/Vita Remote Play is “first generation stuff” and Gaikai looking to “offer new ways of sharing” via Remote Play over “the next ten years”).
Gen two update cycle begins in 2025 and ends in 2035. Jim Ryan believes this time period is when “cloud technology will become a meaningful component of how gamers access games”. Project Q is a component of the cloud component. Remote Play is nice and all, but SIE didn’t buy Gaikai for them to push Remote Play further than cloud-gaming.
Having said that, Remote Play based features like PS5 Share Play with Share Screen will take on greater importance as Project Q mobilizes the Share Play/Share Screen experience. Later in the gen two update cycle, bifurcated sharing/passing control for local play and the cloud will show up. As will a pass-through device for cloud gaming that's compatible with Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast, Roku, etc.
This PS pass-through streamer is set to compete against MS’s Keystone; but if bundled with Project Q, the tandem could be sold as a hybrid microconsole of sorts set to compete against Series X/S and Switch 2 on price.
SIE appears to want two tightly bound console ecosystems. One ecosystem heavily biased towards traditional gaming on a console, with the other completely biased towards cloud/mobile gaming on a hybrid microconsole. And they want Project Q to be the glue that binds them together across PSN and social platforms. Slowly but surely, it's all coming together. When it does, SIE will find itself in an extremely enviable position.
2005 – A patent application is filed for a DualShock 3 that docks with PSP. The thinking behind this DS3 was that PS1 and PS2 games would be “ported for execution on the portable gaming platform”. So naturally it would be best if “the user can utilize substantially, if not identically, the same control sequence as used with the console system.” The DS3 dock never came, but the idea of a fully DualShocked handheld persisted.
2006 – Ken Kutaragi files two patent applications. One for a screened game controller, the other for using the controller as a motion-sensing universal remote. This controller is his PSP successor. But unlike the PSP, he didn’t intend for it to have its own games. Gaming on the device was limited to Remote Play, accessing games on a server and playing “mini-games” (e.g., PS Minis and PS Mobile type games) from internal storage. As for the look, he chose a generic screened rectangular slab with enough buttons to get his point across. Not any known design, rather a clean slate to possibly shape a DualShock 3 around. His controller was later abandoned for its derivative, the PS Vita and alternative, the Xperia Play.
2014 – Gaikai’s David Perry is asked the Q: Do you ever wish the Vita had some extra shoulder buttons to match the DualShock?
His A: Yeah, that’s what we need. I agree. It’s funny because you know I hope we get involved in more and more conversations as we become integrated into more things at Sony. These are the kind of conversations I really want to have.
2016 – Kutaragi’s controller application gets updated from ‘abandoned’ status to ‘active’ status. The change in status comes when PS Vita is shaky and on the ropes. By this time, Gaikai is two years deeper into its integration with SIE and DualSense is in development. The climate is ripe for conversations about the need to stream games to a screened DualSense.
May 18, 2019 – A patent application is filed for a ‘Network Connected Controller for Direct to Cloud Gaming’. David Perry is listed as one of its co-inventors, despite leaving SIE in 2017. Sections of the application say that the controller is DualShock-like and connects directly to cloud-gaming servers over Wi-Fi. This application is published two days after Kutaragi’s newly active application is ‘granted’ (i.e., protected against infringement). Project Q’taragi is underway.
May 21, 2019 – Jim Ryan tells investors/analysts that SIE plans to “maximize off-console opportunity” with PS Now. Maximizing PS Now/+Premium’s off-console reach will require streaming to any number of non-Sony and Sony branded devices, Project Q included. There’s no way around it.
2021 – A patent application is filed for a motion-sensing ‘Universal Remote’ feature that builds on Kutaragi’s motion-sensing universal remote feature. One of the co-inventors cited is Rui Yang. Her Linkedin says she was a Sr. System Test Engineer for Qualcomm before eventually moving to Intel where she delivered a Bluetooth solution for Windows and Android platforms. Most interesting though, her application says game consoles are “entertainment systems” and frames the “entertainment system controller” as a “mobile device” that “may run using a variety of different operating systems (e.g., iOS, Android)”. It goes on to say the mobile device “may execute instructions to operate as the universal remote control”. No doubt, Project Q is the target “mobile device” for this feature. Also, the notion that Project Q is a mobile device means it's a target for mobile games that come out of SIE’s mobile strategy.
2023 – Video surfaces of Android running on Project Q. A mobile OS running on a future PS handheld was inevitable. A few years earlier Andrew House recounted a conversation he had with Kutaragi prior to PSP. House’s takeaway: “Ken Kutaragi was notably reluctant about getting into the portable- gaming market. I think there was a lot of arm-twisting that took place from folks like myself from the marketing and sales side of the organization, and one of the reasons I think was that he had genuinely foreseen the rise of smartphones before anyone had heard about the iPhone. I remember him talking about there was going to be a convergence between all forms of media and entertainment into a single communications device. With that in mind, I think he was therefore skeptical about a dedicated handheld market. But that didn’t stop us from having some really good success with PSP at the time, especially in the Japanese market.” In a different conversation about rivals, Kutaragi gave a window into his thinking: “it’s going to be about time consumption and what is closet to human life. It’s not the smartphone itself, it’s communication.” Coincidentally, AT&T says: “Leave your phone. Bring your number.” SIE and AT&T partnered in the past for PS Vita 3G, so it's possible they may have a partnership for Project Q; but this time to certify Project Q as a NumberSync for Android-compatible tablet. Project Q hints at being a near perfect PS-centric convergence of communication, media and entertainment. More telephony than PS Vita; more screened DualShock than Xperia Play. And given Kutaragi's prediction and efforts by many others over nearly two decades to create a fully Dualshocked handheld, it's a device that's been a long time coming.
Beyond 2023
PS Now’s gen one update cycle ends in 2024 (year extrapolated from PS Now’s launch in 2014, David Perry’s view that PS4/Vita Remote Play is “first generation stuff” and Gaikai looking to “offer new ways of sharing” via Remote Play over “the next ten years”).
Gen two update cycle begins in 2025 and ends in 2035. Jim Ryan believes this time period is when “cloud technology will become a meaningful component of how gamers access games”. Project Q is a component of the cloud component. Remote Play is nice and all, but SIE didn’t buy Gaikai for them to push Remote Play further than cloud-gaming.
Having said that, Remote Play based features like PS5 Share Play with Share Screen will take on greater importance as Project Q mobilizes the Share Play/Share Screen experience. Later in the gen two update cycle, bifurcated sharing/passing control for local play and the cloud will show up. As will a pass-through device for cloud gaming that's compatible with Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast, Roku, etc.
This PS pass-through streamer is set to compete against MS’s Keystone; but if bundled with Project Q, the tandem could be sold as a hybrid microconsole of sorts set to compete against Series X/S and Switch 2 on price.
SIE appears to want two tightly bound console ecosystems. One ecosystem heavily biased towards traditional gaming on a console, with the other completely biased towards cloud/mobile gaming on a hybrid microconsole. And they want Project Q to be the glue that binds them together across PSN and social platforms. Slowly but surely, it's all coming together. When it does, SIE will find itself in an extremely enviable position.
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