According to an interesting rumor, games developed for Sony’s next-generation console will not be available on the new PlayStation handheld; rather, they will be available on PC.

In the latest episode of Moore’s Law is Dead’s Broken Silicon podcast, Bryan Heemskerk from Massive Damage discussed the rumors about Sony’s next-gen hardware and shared his thoughts on how the handheld likely won’t limit home consoles. Heemskerk pointed out that we are living in a post-resolution era where a game like Street Fighter 6 looks better on the Nintendo Switch 2 than on the Xbox Series S even though it runs at a lower resolution on the Nintendo system.

Focusing on resolution targets instead of lowering visual settings would make downgrading home console versions of games to handhelds less challenging, especially if the leaked specifications are correct and if developers use rapidly advancing technologies such as PSSR and AMD FSR 4 for upscaling.

Even if the differences between the desktop and handheld PlayStation 6 end up being greater than the leaked specifications suggest, the situation with the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S is unlikely to be repeated, mainly due to market share. Considering Sony’s current market share and the favorable market for these devices, defining the PlayStation handheld as a base system won’t be too difficult, something Microsoft was never able to do with the Series S.

According to Heemskerk, PC ports, now considered mandatory, could hold back PlayStation 6 games. Currently, all PlayStation console games are developed with the intention of being ported to PC after the console release. However, given the need to consider different configurations — often including outdated hardware, such as older GPUs — as well as storage limitations, developers are unlikely to create games that push the console’s performance to the limit if doing so could cause problems when developing the PC port.

Heemskerk cites Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, a multiplatform game that pushed the PS2 to its limits but is not much better than Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, which suffers from many technical issues. Another example is Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, which is currently only available on the PlayStation 5 and seriously exploits the system’s capabilities and pushes the Decima Engine to its limits. Metroid Prime Remastered is another example of a console-exclusive game that pushed the capabilities of the Nintendo Switch because it did not have to be ported to PC.

Since AMD lacks the market share to enable widespread adoption of new features developed for next-generation consoles, it’s clear how porting games to PC will impact their ability to leverage new hardware. Considering how much the gaming industry has changed in recent years, it will be interesting to see how Sony and Microsoft handle the challenges facing the PlayStation 6 and the next-generation Xbox.

Source: WCCFTech