HANDHELD NEWS – It looks like Sony is also preparing a PlayStation handheld, so a new dedicated platform could follow the PlayStation Vita.

According to a well-known and trusted leaker, there will be a handheld version of the PlayStation 6. However, its performance will understandably not match that of the desktop console, which would be prohibitively expensive and would certainly need a cooling system that would make the platform too heavy and uncomfortable if Sony really wanted to create it (and it would not be financially viable to design and manufacture the same hardware in two formats…).

Last month, Kepler L2, an insider who knows AMD inside and out, took to the NeoGAF forum. He revealed that the portable version of Sony’s next-generation console will not be as powerful as the PlayStation 5. This is logical as the PSP was not on the same level as the PS2 back in the day, although we have seen games in very similar condition on the PlayStation Portable (Test Drive Unlimited was excellent on both PS2 and PSP). The handheld version of PlayStation 6 will be powered by a 3nm, 15W system-on-a-chip (SoC). As the system will reportedly be able to run PlayStation 5 games, it will be interesting to see how this is achieved and what compromises will be made…

Very little is known about the PlayStation 6 at the moment. Earlier this year, Kepler L2 claimed that we had heard from Kepler L2 that the SoC design was complete and entering pre-silicon verification, with an A0 tapeout planned for later this year. While this doesn’t tell us much about the console, the usual timeframe between A0 tapeout and release is 2 years, so a 2027 release is a possibility. It is now official that Sony has stayed with AMD, and last year we heard that Intel tried but failed because of a dispute over how much margin they could have gotten on the SoCs they could have made for Sony.

But none of this is official yet!

Source: WCCFTech, NeoGAF