Sony has finally broken their silence regarding the entire handheld mania that has been going on during the past couple of years, and here is their answer. Project Q is Sony’s brand-new 8-inch handheld that is specifically built for Playstation 5 remote play. That’s right, A CLOUD-BASED HANDHELD. When companies like Asus are pumping out full-fledged handhelds, they have come up with a portable console, that needs an entire console as an accessory to be able to work. Nonetheless, we are here to talk about whether it can compete with the likes of Steam Deck and ROG Ally.
Sony’s Project Q Handheld: A Missed Opportunity?
The console itself looks like a Batarang, with an 8-inch HD screen at the center and DualSense wireless controller attached on both sides. According to Sony’s press release, the screen uses an LCD panel that can run games at up to 1080p resolution and 60 hertz of refresh rate. It functions over Wifi to stream games directly from the PlayStation 5. Simply put, this is a companion handheld for your PS5 that can’t natively play games like the Steam Deck or a phone. Hell, it can’t even stream games from the cloud independently without the PS5.
While enthusiasts wanted something like a PS Vita 2 or a successor to the PSP, Sony seems to be sticking to their vision of making cloud gaming a thing. But isn’t that already a thing? To remote-play Playstation 5 games, you don’t need to wait for the Project Q. Just get an iPhone or Android and you can stream and play your PS5 games directly to these devices via the PS Remote Play App. There is even a Linux-based App named Chaiaki that you can load into your Steam Deck and stream PS5 games on it.
With that being said, Sony is missing a huge opportunity by not releasing a dedicated handheld. Even if the performance is of PlayStation 4 level, people will highly adopt the console. We have already seen this work with the Steam Deck.
But what you really need to be excited about is the Specialized PlayStation 5 earbuds that were unveiled alongside the Project Q Handheld. And boy do they look cool! According to Sony, these will “bring next-generation audio immersion” Whether you get them for PS5 or PC, you can expect low-latency audio output while gaming.
Our Takeaway
The handheld along with the earbuds are expected to arrive later this year, and you can expect more information regarding them along the way. So that was all about the upcoming Sony Project Q Handheld.
