impression : Sony revealed the Project Q handheld yesterday , but it left more questions than answers . certainly there ’s more to it than a vessel for Remote Play ?
Last month I wrote an opinion piece after a so - call ‘ Q Lite ’ handheld gaming social unit for PS5 consoles was turn over . I actually say itsounded “ too lame ” to be trueand doubted the veracity of the report . Unless there was something more to it , I called it a “ missed chance . ”
apology to the newsperson atInsider Gamingwho got the scoop , it turn out he may have been strike on the money , fit in to what we were told yesterday by Sony . The Project Q does indeed sound like a handheld contrive exclusively for Remote Play cyclosis from a PS5 in the home .
At the time , I thought this would represent a “ monolithic lack of ambitiousness from Sony ” given the opportunity to leverage the incredibly large and impressive PlayStation library for cloud gambling .
I wrote : “ Sony has the unchallenged finest gaming subroutine library of the last 30 - old age at its garbage disposal . An eventuality when you’re able to get the near of PlayStation preceding , present and next on the go , power by the swarm is hugely tantalising .
“ properly now cloud streaming of PS4 , PS3 and PS2 games are only available to stream on a PS5 , PS4 or PC . Why on earth would Sony not expand that if it ’s run to set in motion a consecrated handheld twist for gaming , with the power to connect to the internet ? It makes zero sense at all . ”
It still , after the announcement , makes zero sense at all . Why would Sony put the time and attempt into develop a brand new handheld machine that just seems so limited ? I ’ll admit I ’m not sure how wide theRemote Playfeature is used byPS5gamers . Unless Sony is watch some serious numbers here and spots an opportunity to make clean up with dedicated Remote period of play French telephone , this seems like overkill .
Everyone they ’re targeting has a ) a smartphone or tablet and b ) a DualSense controller . This is all that ’s need to savor Remote swordplay . If users require an all - in - one result , Backbone has a DualSense - inspired , officially licensed model to cradle your headphone for £ 100 . And this week itbecame available on Android too .
Again , I ’ll repetition , cloud play independently of the main machine is very much en vogue properly now . Improved infrastructure on remote servers is enabling manufacturer to offer an experience comparable to AAA console experiences on gadget shoot a line far less power . Why would Sony not wish to leverage this for its own swarm ambitions ?
“ We note mobility in play habits to be an more and more important trend , and the swarm will be central to allowing us , or indeed anybody else , to exploit that trend , ” said PlayStation boss Jim Ryan to begin with this calendar week .
“ unluckily , today is not the property for me to reveal these plans , but we do have some fair interesting and quite aggressive programme to speed up our initiatives in the quad of the swarm that will stretch out over the course of instruction of the come calendar month . ”
I ca n’t envision a scenario where Project Q is not part of those “ aggressive plans ” . Perhaps Sony is just keeping that on the down - blue for now and is glad in the lag for the doubters to scythe through its proposition , based on an ever so abbreviated trailer at the very end of a live flow .
I ’m expecting all will become clear in the come in months when Sony launch its answer to Xbox Cloud gaming in devout . I ’d be blow out of the water if Project Q was n’t a vast part of this .
