• A new update will turn the PlayStation Portal into a cloud-streaming gaming device.
• Initially, the Portal was only for remote play with the PlayStation 5 required to be kept switched on.
• South Africans will have to wait for PlayStation Cloud Streaming to launch locally to use the Portal for what it was probably always intended to be.

Initially launched as a remote play-only device in early 2024, Sony has updated the PlayStation Portal with what is likely the reason it was made in the first place – the ability to play games directly from the PlayStation Cloud.

“This update will also include a beta version of a new feature that many fans have been asking for – support for cloud streaming on PS Portal,” Hiromi Wakai, product management VP at Sony wrote in a blog post.

“When the update is live, PlayStation Plus Premium members will be able to participate in a beta for cloud streaming on PS Portal, allowing select PS5 games in the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog to be streamed directly from our servers, even without a PS5 console.”

We were disappointed to discover that the Portal would only allow remote play directly from your PlayStation 5 console when it was revealed in August 2023. This meant that the console would have to be switched on and the Portal basically acted as a second screen for you.

This would help if, for example, your dad was watching golf (bleugh!) on the only TV in the house, then you could still play your PS5 games on the Portal. This all had to happen while connected to WiFi.

“PlayStation Portal is the perfect device for gamers in households where they might need to share their living room TV or simply want to play PS5 games in another room of the house,” Sony explained.

It seemed to be a poor reason to sell a R5 499 handheld, but now – after almost a full year – we get to see what Sony was really working on with the Portal.

Unfortunately, only a handful of countries will get the Cloud Streaming beta and as usual South Africa gets the short end of the stick. But if the beta is successful, local Portal owners may eventually be able to use PlayStation Cloud Streaming if they are PlayStation Plus Deluxe subscribers.

Deluxe is the version of Premium that South Africans can get locally. Here’s hoping that Sony smiles on South Africa and gives us access to cloud streaming, which has yet to touch African soil since launching late last year.

This will allow them to stream over 120 PS5 games from the PS Plus Game Catalog, including Dave the Diver, Ghost of Tsushima, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Monster Hunter Rise, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart at no extra cost.

Wakai says that streaming of the games will be available in 1080p and 60FPS depending on the title, and players will receive up to 100GB cloud storage for save games, which will also be synced to their PlayStation 5 console.

Cloud streaming requires at least a 13Mbps connection to stream at 1080p and at least 7Mbps to stream at 720p. As of now the only cloud streaming platform actually available locally is NVIDIA Geforce Now through rain, but even this is a nightmare to try get into and there are restrictions.