Jump to content

Sony announces PlayStation Portal streaming handheld, update: "Impressive Hardware But Is Remote Play Itself Good Enough?" (Digital Foundry technical review)

SaysWho?

By SaysWho?
in The Spawn Point

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mr.Vic20

Mr.Vic20

Posted
Posted

From a business perspective I get this. Developing this device actually serves Sony's interests in the following ways:

 

* Prepare for streaming only future (god knows when) by revving up single solution device development. 

* No exclusive games means Sony can recoup some of its R&D/Marketing on this device that they likely would have developed internal anyway because of the point above

 

That said, I think its stupid and few people will buy it. We also know that streaming will not truly work for gaming until ISPs get their shit together, which they have zero incentive to do.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Spork3245

Spork3245

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

From a business perspective I get this. Developing this device actually serves Sony's interests in the following ways:

 

* Prepare for streaming only future (god knows when) by revving up single solution device development. 

* No exclusive games means Sony can recoup some of its R&D/Marketing on this device that they likely would have developed internal anyway because of the point above

 

That said, I think its stupid and few people will buy it. We also know that streaming will not truly work for gaming until ISPs get their shit together, which they have zero incentive to do.

 


If it had direct access to PS+ Streaming Titles (without a PS5 connection) it would make a hell of a lot more sense IMO.

  • True 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TwinIon

TwinIon

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

If it had direct access to PS+ Streaming Titles (without a PS5 connection) it would make a hell of a lot more sense IMO.

That is by far the most confusing omission from this device to me. I think streaming only handhelds are a small niche to begin with, but to do a streaming only device that you can't use with your existing game streaming service is just odd.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
Commissar SFLUFAN

Commissar SFLUFAN

Posted
Posted

 

Quote

Sony combines a tablet LCD display with actual DualSense hardware to create a unique remote player for detaching PlayStation 5 gameplay from your main display. In this review, Rich assesses the rather cool hardware and gets to grips with Sony's Remote Play - what's the image quality like and how laggy is it? And does this - or any other review - actually count when so much of the experience is reliant on the integrity, quality and consistency of your WiFi connection?

 

portal-site_SdKPyBt.jpg?width=1200&heigh

PlayStation Portal review: impressive hardware but is Remote Play itself good enough?

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET
The Digital Foundry verdict on PlayStation Portal with latency/lag and image quality tests.

 

Quote

 

My recommendations for optimal conditions for PlayStation Portal starts with setting up a hard link between your PS5 and your router via a LAN cable. You see, there are two steps to data transfer between Portal and console: firstly, the console communicates with your router, then data is beamed out over WiFi to the handheld. By hardwiring the console to the router, you cut out one stage that could potentially increase latency and data loss. Secondly, you should aim to have your Portal as close to your WiFi router as possible for it to get the strongest signal. If you can't do all of those things, the Portal experience will inevitably be degraded or become less consistent to a certain extent. To be clear though, there's nothing stopping you from trying to run the Portal anywhere you want within the constraints set by the device - you can even access your PlayStation 5 over cellular when out and about. However, the further away you get from your console/router in both real and/or internet space, the less optimal the experience is likely to be.

 

You may have noticed a wealth of varying experiences with PlayStation Portal when looking at reviews or social media posts from new owners - and that may well be down to things like the individual perception of latency or image quality, but equally it may well be down to varying levels of quality over WiFi. My advice to prospective Portal owners? Download the Sony Remote Play app for your phone or a laptop and give it a go. It'll set the expectation level for the experience perhaps encourage experimentation with moving your console or router about to improve streaming quality and consistency.

 

 

Quote

We've not been particularly complimentary about Remote Play in the past and even now with PlayStation Portal, I'd rate it as OK but not great. It's fine as a value-added feature for the PlayStation 5, but as a streamer it means you're going to get extra lag and image quality compromises. With my PS5 attached to my router via Ethernet and the Portal around 1m away from that - the best conditions I could muster - I observed a four to five frame difference between the same gameplay from console HDMI vs Remote Play on Portal. That's essentially 60-80ms of extra lag compared to my LG CX TV running with game mode enabled. I tried a second router and even the PC client running fully wired via the router to PS5 and couldn't appreciably change that latency. It seems to be a limitation within the PS5, but who knows, your mileage may vary.

 

Quote

First impressions aren't great as there's obvious macroblocking and banding on the PlayStation 5 front-end - the first thing you'll see when connecting Portal to PS5. Graduated, flat colours can be tricky for video streaming but even so, I expected better. Gameplay is much better: the quality can be impressive, especially when downscaled to be viewed on an 8-inch tablet screen. Even though there is a 1:1 pixel match with the stream, it is not quite pristine though but on slower moving content, a good amount of detail is still retained even in a rich game like Horizon Forbidden West. Slower paced content with muted colour such as Alan Wake 2 can look very, very close to native. However, fast action and varying colour is the nemesis of streaming tech and it presents on the screen as a subtle smearing effect, or not so subtle depending on how much the encoder is stressed. More obvious is that Portal does seem capable of losing frames even when the source game is not - something I've seen on all Remote Play clients. While a 60fps game generally presents as a 60fps game, there is some stutter at points and this occurred even in optimal conditions.

 

Quote

 

In summary, I really like the PlayStation Portal hardware. It's a nicely presented Remote Play device but at the heart of it, it's still Remote Play with its historic limitations and I hoped for more. Still, the full DualSense experience does set this apart from other Remote Play experiences - the haptics are just as good as the standard controller as are the adaptive triggers and that's because it is a DualSense controller, basically. The screen isn't OLED-class loveliness but I have few complaints with it - it's bright, vibrant and attractive. However, even in best-case scenarios, there seems to be frame dropping issues on the device, the lag will be an issue for those sensitive to it and due to the basic nature of streaming itself, image quality will be variable. That's on top of actually ensuring that your WiFi set-up is optimal for Portal in all the places you want to use it.

 

There are also clearly big misses in terms of the feature set, in addition to the mystifying lack of Bluetooth headset support (only Sony's own wireless system is supported). First of all, PlayStation Portal should support cloud streaming. It's a no-brainer and would add a bit more value to the rather expensive top tier PlayStation Plus subscription offering. Why this isn't included already is frankly baffling. Secondly, a mode to use your highly expensive 'DualSense with a Screen' as an actual, local DualSense controller seems like another oversight. I'd also like to see actual diagnostic tools that can be used to optimise your home network for the best possible Portal experience - right now the device just automatically assumes that everything is fine with only the most minimal of warnings when image quality crashes and the lag makes everything unplayable. Finally, there's the concept of fan service. A brilliant value-added feature would be to emulate prior Sony handhelds and maybe the PSone. Perhaps that's a little niche for today's Sony but there's no reason why it could not be done - the hardware itself is clearly capable of so much more than Portal delivers.

 

Ultimately, I'm impressed with the PlayStation Portal hardware, but I don't feel Remote Play is good enough or robust enough to support a hardware launch of this scale. However, if you disagree, that's absolutely fine - the diversity of opinion on this launch has been fascinating. Thankfully, owing to the existence of a plethora of existing apps across many systems, it's easy to test how good Remote Play is before you lay down your money. On the hardware side, Sony has delivered a good piece of kit - but hopefully we'll see improvements and new features added further on down the line.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Sony announces PlayStation Portal streaming handheld, update: "Impressive Hardware But Is Remote Play Itself Good Enough?" (Digital Foundry technical review)
Paperclyp

Paperclyp

Posted
Posted

I can't justify getting this thing at its current price but as I've probably said earlier in the thread this thing does appeal to me. 100 bucks I would go after it no question. I'd start thinking about it 120 range. But 200 bucks is just too much. 

 

Edit: Looks like my initial reaction was I didn't see the point in it haha. 

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Spork3245

Spork3245

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Air_Delivery said:

I have a 6e mesh node connected to an nvidia shield via a 1Gb ethernet cable


That’s why, as now it can benefit from the ethernet connection through the mesh directly (wirelessly) connected to the router. If you had the Shield connected via WiFi I doubt you’d notice much of a (if any) difference even if the chip in the Shield was 6e. You’re likely also streaming 4k UHD HDR/DV content which is not the same as streaming 1080p 60hz SDR.

You’re looking at, what, 6-7 megabits for 1080p 60? Wifi 5 has 6.9Gbps (theoretical) and typically gets around 4Gbps in actual scenarios. You’d need a hell of a lot of interference to get noticeable quality differences between 5 and 6e here at 1080p streaming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
XxEvil AshxX

XxEvil AshxX

Posted
Posted

I'll never understand the "when my wife/kids want to use the tv, I can game on this" argument. What household has a PS5 and only one tv? If you can afford a Portal, you can afford a second TV. I bought a 40" 4K Samsung for like, $179. It's not the greatest tv ever, but it's mine, and the wife can watch the big tv all she wants and it doesn't interfere with my plans in the slightest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Spork3245

Spork3245

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

I'll never understand the "when my wife/kids want to use the tv, I can game on this" argument. What household has a PS5 and only one tv? If you can afford a Portal, you can afford a second TV. I bought a 40" 4K Samsung for like, $179. It's not the greatest tv ever, but it's mine, and the wife can watch the big tv all she wants and it doesn't interfere with my plans in the slightest.


Or even just streaming via the app + a dualsense on a phone or tablet that you already own for free (or even to a PC, Mac, SteamDeck, Ally, etc) :p 

The price on this thing is what’s so odd to me. If the screen was 120hz VRR + HDR and maybe even mini-LED or OLED then $200 is less unreasonable IMO. But 1080 60hz SDR? Like… wtf? :p 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Keyser_Soze

Keyser_Soze

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

I'll never understand the "when my wife/kids want to use the tv, I can game on this" argument. What household has a PS5 and only one tv? If you can afford a Portal, you can afford a second TV. I bought a 40" 4K Samsung for like, $179. It's not the greatest tv ever, but it's mine, and the wife can watch the big tv all she wants and it doesn't interfere with my plans in the slightest.

 

Well the way Jeff Grubb describes it is, all the family is gathered in front of the TV, they do stuff on the TV while he sits there playing a game in handheld which counts as being together i suppose. You can't be "with" your family if you have two TVs, unless the two TVs are in the same room. (Although, my dad had two TVs in the same room and it worked out fine :p )

Link to comment
Share on other sites
XxEvil AshxX

XxEvil AshxX

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Well the way Jeff Grubb describes it is, all the family is gathered in front of the TV, they do stuff on the TV while he sits there playing a game in handheld which counts as being together i suppose. You can't be "with" your family if you have two TVs, unless the two TVs are in the same room. (Although, my dad had two TVs in the same room and it worked out fine :p )

 

My wife and I lived in a small apartment for a few years. She sat and watched TV while I chilled at my computer desk in the same room playing my video games on the monitor. Luckily we were eventually able to upgrade to larger living spaces but it was never an issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Air_Delivery

Air_Delivery

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Spork3245 said:


That’s why, as now it can benefit from the ethernet connection through the mesh directly (wirelessly) connected to the router. If you had the Shield connected via WiFi I doubt you’d notice much of a (if any) difference even if the chip in the Shield was 6e. You’re likely also streaming 4k UHD HDR/DV content which is not the same as streaming 1080p 60hz SDR.

You’re looking at, what, 6-7 megabits for 1080p 60? Wifi 5 has 6.9Gbps (theoretical) and typically gets around 4Gbps in actual scenarios. You’d need a hell of a lot of interference to get noticeable quality differences between 5 and 6e here at 1080p streaming.

Its not just about bandwidth though. Interference and network congestion can cause dropped packets, jitter and latency which is a big deal in some games.

In places like apartment complexes, interference can be hell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DarkStar189

DarkStar189

Posted
Posted

Honestly, I’m probably buying one whenever I can find one in stock. I could do the backbone thing but I’d rather have a dedicated device. My phone gets used for so much every day that I’m not big on adding console gaming to it in the evenings. I don’t have a tablet.  Biggest reason…it might make my wife happier. She’s knows I’m more of a night owl and I really only have time to play games at night(PS5 is in the living room). She’s always been accepting of that but has said/hinted that in a perfect world she would rather me be in bed with her most nights.  Makes her feel safer/closer/etc as she’s falling asleep. I could definitely see this as a way to get me in bed but also let me play the single player console games I want to play without being confined to the living room. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mercury33

Mercury33

Posted
Posted
On 11/27/2023 at 7:59 AM, XxEvil AshxX said:

I'll never understand the "when my wife/kids want to use the tv, I can game on this" argument. What household has a PS5 and only one tv? If you can afford a Portal, you can afford a second TV. I bought a 40" 4K Samsung for like, $179. It's not the greatest tv ever, but it's mine, and the wife can watch the big tv all she wants and it doesn't interfere with my plans in the slightest.


What’s hard to understand? Not every house or apartment has room for a second 40+ inch screen. Not everyone wants their computer desk in their main living room(or has room for it). Maybe their partner or kids are using the main tv, they want to play their PS5 and want to stay in the same room with their family. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gamer.tv

gamer.tv

Posted
Posted
On 11/27/2023 at 12:59 PM, XxEvil AshxX said:

I'll never understand the "when my wife/kids want to use the tv, I can game on this" argument. What household has a PS5 and only one tv? If you can afford a Portal, you can afford a second TV. I bought a 40" 4K Samsung for like, $179. It's not the greatest tv ever, but it's mine, and the wife can watch the big tv all she wants and it doesn't interfere with my plans in the slightest.


We’ve got a four bedroom house, but don’t want TVs in our bedroom and our attic room/bedroom is too cold/hot - so one TV it is. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DarkStar189

DarkStar189

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, stepee said:

I didn’t realize this doesn’t have 6e - this is a long step down from what I first thought it would be which is a direct wireless connection like wiiu

I’m just hoping for a smooth connection for singleplayer stuff. I even have the benefit of the master bedroom being on the first floor with the living room where the ps5 and router are. My kids are upstairs and get a decent connection.  So this thing better work flawlessly when I’m laying in bed haha.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
stepee

stepee

Posted
Posted
4 minutes ago, DarkStar189 said:

I’m just hoping for a smooth connection for singleplayer stuff. I even have the benefit of the master bedroom being on the first floor with the living room where the ps5 and router are. My kids are upstairs and get a decent connection.  So this thing better work flawlessly when I’m laying in bed haha.

 

Yeah I hope it works well. I just don’t get it because it’s not like there weren’t 6e chips available for them to use. Hopefully the channels aren’t too crowded where you are. Since you are in a house, not an apartment complex in a city like myself, you will probably have better luck. 

 

For me it makes a huge difference in my bedroom in my apartment using 6e for ps5 remote play vs 5ghz - as far as not dropping frames/connectivity. For people in apartments especially I think 6e can be a Godsend so it’s a shame they skipped it.

  • Halal 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...