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PlayStation Portal hacked, PPSSPP emulator shown running natively

AREYOUOKAY?

Member
Neat, but getting your hands on a Vita is still the best way to play PSP games.
It’s a faaaaaaake

Nd1UPl8.jpg
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
If I'm honest if I'm going to run a PSP game on a handheld I'd rather run it on a... PSP (unless we're talking emulator on a handheld PC to upres).

But it does open doors, and proof of concept is all this needs to be.
 

Faust

Perpetually Tired
Staff Member
This could easily become the best handheld retro/emulator machine ever made.
Not even close. The Switch Oled and Steam Deck Oled are better for visuals alone thanks to their screens. That isn’t even to mention all the features of the Steam Deck in general. The PlayStation Portal just can’t compete.
 
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I don't get the point of this thing. You can achieve the same result with a tablet and a kickstand with your same PS5 controller paired wirelessly or even USB. Why bother with such a restricted device?
 

Raonak

Banned
I don't get the point of this thing. You can achieve the same result with a tablet and a kickstand with your same PS5 controller paired wirelessly or even USB. Why bother with such a restricted device?

Noone wants to deal with such a cumbersome setup.
I've tried it before and I would never ever use it unless it's an emergency.

If you can just pick up a device and play instantly, then that's automatically better.
Sure it costs money, but the convenience is what you're paying for.
 
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Dexero

Member
With the high number of android handhelds that wall all over the portal (like the new Retroid Pocket 4/Pro) this is an interesting exercise but ultimately pointless
 

Crayon

Member
Well this thing could be a neat, if a little expensive, retro handheld. Didn't really think about it, but it makes sense any arm chip these days might make it to psp level.
 

Porticus

Member
That's the power of the PS brand, my guy. Not indicative of the product's quality.

As I've mentioned, Retroid Pocket 4 Pro can run up to PS2/GC natively, in a pocket format, with good battery life and better internal storage for the same price. Plus it can run all the streaming platforms available.

Paying $200 for a device that can just do streaming is nuts, imo (or emulation of old devices only). You have way better devices for way less.
Dude the difference in size between the retroid and the portal is totally different, no reason to compare them.
 

FrankWza

Member
I don't get the point of this thing. You can achieve the same result with a tablet and a kickstand with your same PS5 controller paired wirelessly or even USB. Why bother with such a restricted device?
it has one use case now. Good.
Don't worry guys, all of the parents that didn't nt realize that you need a PS5 to play this are in the process of returning them and this will be discontinued soon. DO3monthsafterA
 

Hugare

Member
Dude the difference in size between the retroid and the portal is totally different, no reason to compare them.
That was one example to show that there are more powerful devices for the same price even at a smaller form factor

But there are bigger devices, even with AMOLED at that price but with better hardware (new Anbernic release)

My point is that there are tons of better devices at that price, of all shapes and sizes.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
I guess it's neat for existing owners to get some use out of it but yeah, not something to get for this use at all.

Snapdragon 680 or something like that, pretty crummy, would probably be better off getting a controller shell or whatever for your phone, easier to install the emulators and stuff on it too.
yeah that is horrible lol.
 

Agent X

Member
It only has 6 GB of available storage:

Ah, well, that's going to limit what you can do with this device.

6 GB on its own would still be sufficient for loading on a few PSP or PS1 games, but it wouldn't be viable for PS2 or other later systems' games.

I doubt this unfortunately.

Edit: I should specify why and that is because of the internal components. The components do their current asked tasks wonderfully, but storing psp games and running at close to good performance will be an issue. It probably would do a good job up to ps1, but then file size becomes an issue.

File size is surely a big obstacle.

It would've been nice to have some sort of memory expansion. The problem is that Sony never intended for the PlayStation Portal to serve as a standalone gaming system, therefore they never saw any need to include a memory card slot.
 

CamHostage

Member
Its a shame Sony didn't support PS1/PSP for the PS Portal.

The Portal would need storage for that. A simple SD card would suffice (or an increase of the onboard storage that is quietly included, although I would imagine that's mostly for OS and buffer and other features, and the size is just the current baseline for affordability for the purpose,) but they didn't do it.

They'd also need to re-open the PS1/PSP storehouse, and that's not happening as far as we know. (There are a few PSP and PS1 games in a PS4/PS5 emulation wrapper on PSN, but they'd have their own emulators built in so that's a little extra burden even if the Portal could ignore the app and go straight to the ROM, plus there are very few of these on there and not enough to sell as a feature... they're also brutally overpriced.)

Sony just is not bullish on the classic PlayStation game market anymore. They could have easily done PS1 and PSP on PS5 (and probably PS2 and maybe PS3 and PS Vita) and then that could have been beamed to Portal just like anything else, but they're not interested aside from some select franchise titles. (They've gotten weird with PS Classics recently, with leftfield additions like Star Wars Ep 1 The Phantom Menace and Star Wars Demolition but no other SW or just LocoRoco Midnight Carnival but no other LocoRocos, but they have not sped up their releases in any way to indicate that these titles are purposeful tests or whatever leading into a bigger catalog re-launch.)

Having Portal supporting old platforms natively would have meant Sony supporting old platforms in general, and they're sadly just not heavy into that business anymore.
 
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ShirAhava

Plays with kids toys, in the adult gaming world
oh so this thing isn't completely worthless now? but still not worth it

buy a flagship galaxy phone from four years ago, a controller shell or BT to dualsense

A 7 inch oled screen attachment for playstation classic would have been cooler than the portal what a waste
 
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CamHostage

Member
The advantage is a much larger screen & built in Dualsense.

But yeah, still a limited appeal unless you just want a dedicated streaming device.

Yeah, a few advantages of Portal, but not really clear reasons that this hack would change its value if you don't already want it for its intended purpose.

  • It has got the DualSense feedback/resistance haptics
  • It has the feel of a PS controller with the grips (so many portables are built for "portability", which is obviously a great benefit but it often murders your hand to grip these things and you're pretty much never going to put an 7/8" screen device in your pocket so it's a little weird that nobody is prioritizing comfort.) And it's stable enough to play hard, which you're not going to get with a cellphone attachment (though a dedicated handheld like an Android game player would do fine)
  • It uses this supposed "PlayStation Link" stream for the best quality Sony has done in (although in reviews, I'm not seeing any difference and am not clear what Sony is convinced the difference would be of a WiFi-to-WiFi signal?),
  • It pairs with the Pulse Earbuds
  • It's light...ish? I've not held one myself, but the specs say 529g, which seems way heavy for something people praised as "lightweight", given it's over 100g heavier than a Switch, but compared to portable PCs, it's a spinner.
  • It's cheap...ish? $200 for a portable device that just streams and maybe also can be hacked to do a little more is still high IMO but considering just a standard controller for PS5 is $80, getting that with a big screen and offline play is maybe worth it
  • It potentially could have some dedicated PlayStation features that could get locked to Portal, so for example second-screen use in particular games or natively play as a PS5 controller. (A Backbone or other device could do it too unless it gets locked to "PlayStation Link", same as a Vita or even PSP... I wouldn't buy a Portal specifically for hoping that somebody does something cool with an exclusive feature...)
  • Screen is 8" (which is uncommon, usually they're 7s) and 1080p/60 (but not OLED and not the very best screen that money can buy)
  • It's got sexy PlayStation design (kind of? it's not as slick as most anything Sony put out in years past, but it still has its charms)
I surprisingly ended up with a lot of bulletpoints there, but almost all of them have caveats. IMO getting an Anbernic or Odin device or pairing a Backbone with an old phone or even modding a Switch and using one of those solutions for Remote Play is probably going to stream similarly if not exactly as well as a Portal, and offer more bang for your buck overall. You're almost certainly going to get a better PS1 and PSP emulation experience too.
 
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Saber

Gold Member
The Portal costs $200, for its emulation capabilities to be interesting it would have to be capable of PS2, not PSP

And?
Reread what I said. I said Portal is a dumb product. But emulating stuff would make it interesting. I didn't compare cost benefit and neither power stuff, this is stuff from your head.
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
Someone should make an optimised ExaGear build just for running the Playstation Plus PC Streaming App on this thing. It is a travesty that Sony haven't added an official one themselves yet.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
I don't get it, it's like jailbreaking an iPhone just to make it do the things you want that Android does out of the box. Just get a steam deck and save yourself the headache.
Some people hack & jailbreak stuff just to brag and prove that it's possible, not to create the best emulation machine out there.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
Sony: Stream cutting-edge current-gen games to a handheld device!
Some folks for some reason: Would be better if it played 15-20-year-old ROMs like the 1000s of retro handhelds already available.
 

Senua

Member
Sony: Stream cutting-edge current-gen games to a handheld device!
Some folks for some reason: Would be better if it played 15-20-year-old ROMs like the 1000s of retro handhelds already available.
The point is it should do both!!!! both I tells ya!
 

night13x

Member
this thing will be amazing if it turns into a PS1, PS2, PSP emu machine (without digging too deep, I am going to take a guess that this probably wont be able to handle vita/ps3 emulation). Still....imagine being able to switch from "portal mode" to classic playstation mode. This thing is going to be a goldmine.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Personally I think the device is way overpriced for what it is, but that's just me.

$200 is CHEAP! Lets not get crazy with what things cost these days. The back-bone controller is $100 and it's literally just a controller.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I don't get the point of this thing. You can achieve the same result with a tablet and a kickstand with your same PS5 controller paired wirelessly or even USB. Why bother with such a restricted device?

And why would I want to carry all of that around? And a kickstand? LOL!!! No way, that's wack.

oh so this thing isn't completely worthless now? but still not worth it

buy a flagship galaxy phone from four years ago, a controller shell or BT to dualsense

A 7 inch oled screen attachment for playstation classic would have been cooler than the portal what a waste

Not everyone is starving to play games we've played literally 25 years ago. Millions of us actually want to play games that came out after the year 2015 away from our TV or outside of our homes.
 

Burger

Member
I mean, emulation can suck it, what needs to go on here is:

Chiaki - Hopefully remove the stutter that plagues the official use for this device.
Geforce Now - Yiss
X Cloud - Obvs.
Moonlight - Why not.
 

BlackTron

Member
Or an Xbox Series console :messenger_blowing_kiss:
That's not exactly a handheld device, is it. Although I only just found out the Moonlight app is available in retail mode (and has been since 2021), so you can stream anything you want to it.
Nah

Why buy a closed PC?

I would have replied to this myself but I was sure it was just a joke post. I mean no way anybody would ever say "hey you don't need any emulation handheld, buy a Xbox instead". How dumb it is, complete with a winking kiss emoji, was supposed to be the joke we are all in on, right? Right???
 

Zathalus

Member
I mean, emulation can suck it, what needs to go on here is:

Chiaki - Hopefully remove the stutter that plagues the official use for this device.
Yeah, I powered my Portal on again today and this is still a issue. Can't believe its not fixed yet.
 
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I don't get the point of this thing. You can achieve the same result with a tablet and a kickstand with your same PS5 controller paired wirelessly or even USB. Why bother with such a restricted device?
Not all Tablets support Sony's Remote Play. Or the remote app doesn't support these Tablets. Whatever.

I just recently bought an Android 13 Tablet and the app just does nothing. It was not the main reason for my purchase at all, but I also wanted to use it for remote playing. The app ran on my phone when it was on Android 10 or 11 and I have yet to check if it still runs on its current version 12 were its support ends. The temperature and battery drain was no joke though, so I never wanted to actually use it on the phone. For PS4 I'd anyway use my Vita, but PS5 on that small screen would anyway be more of a waste.

The play store rating of the remote play app isn't for no reason rather low, since Sony seems to have forgotten about it. Iirc it was a solid 4 or whatever any working app gets when I downloaded it for my phone some years ago. Now its barely above 3. First they only offered it for Samsung devices, but now it should be open for anything. But just is not working.
 
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