this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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PlayStation Portal is out but trying to find one is about as arduous as trying to buy a PS5 in late 2020.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I’d say low supply but higher than expected demand. If it were low demand, people wouldn’t be having a problem getting one.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Artificial scarcity is a thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, but Sony isn’t reaping the rewards for it, scalpers are. Artificial scarcity would make sense if Sony were jacking up their prices, but they’re not the ones doing that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Uhh, 200$ for a piece of junk sounds a lot like a lot to me, and enough to be considered "jacked".

[–] echo64 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I know people want to implicitly shit on this thing because they don't personally want one, and I guess they don't want other people to enjoy them, but come on, this is silly. You know none of that. You just wish it was that.

Honestly, this place was great for a while, but it's very rapidly devolving into the vapid reddit style comments you see all over that place.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't know if that's a fair criticism. I think I first saw something about this thing yesterday. Not much of a marketing push. I had to look it up to see what the heck it is. It seems to have a very specific and narrow use case. I'm sure it's a nice option for people with that need and works well enough, but it's not exactly something the masses are clamoring for. There's similar tech out there and they are sort of niche products. I don't expect this thing to be selling like hotcakes.

[–] TyrionsNose 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I pre-ordered mine back in September. Those of us who game from multiple rooms in their house this thing is amazing. Or those who have to share a TV with people who don’t use the PS5 connected to it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't have any generation PlayStation so I don't have a dog in this fight. That being said:

I completely understand. I've got a gaming rig in one room, stream to mini PCs set up as steam consoles in other rooms, and have a Steam Deck. I can play anywhere in my house. I never need to worry whether someone else is using a TV.

If it works for your case, I'm happy for you!

[–] TyrionsNose 5 points 1 year ago

Yup, and that’s the exact use case for the Portal.

[–] money_loo 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Naw their criticisms are extremely fair.

When this thing was first announced it was met with mostly people all over going “what’s the point of this thing, nobody is going to buy such a useless thing when they can just play on their phone or some adapter” etc.

Then when the pre-orders where announced to be selling out, it didn’t shift to “people want this thing”, they just pivoted to “they are just lying to hype it up”

And now that it’s sold out everywhere, they have no choice but to either admit it was wanted and they were wrong, or just keep going with the idea that, no, it’s everyone else that is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Selling out doesn’t mean anything. Let’s see some real sales figures.

[–] money_loo 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I can personally vouch for 1

[–] echo64 2 points 1 year ago

Sure, but the narrative in this thread is assuming that it muuust have been low units for low sales based on nothing. That is what I was critizing. The people here and the quality of the comments.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Less than 10% of PS5 owners buy this. It is a screen with a controller that can only be used to play your PS5 with when you are at home for $199.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

4 Million units ain’t bad

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Others have said it already, but it's the best way to describe it. It's literally just a screen with a controller attached. You can only use it for remote play on a PlayStation console at home. It doesn't offer cloud gaming and it doesn't allow you to even connect to WiFi networks that require you to sign on in a browser before gaining access to the Internet because the thing doesn't even have a browser included in the software. The only common use case I could see for this thing is if you're going to a friend's house as a teen and want to play online games while in person.

Even then, as a parent I would much rather just spend the extra money on a steamdeck or other handheld that has compute and actual software. This is a ripe $200 turd that hardcore PlayStation fans and overzealous scalpers are buying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s $199, the same price as the Premium DualSense Edge controller.

[–] Zahille7 7 points 1 year ago

That's kind of ridiculous for a controller. Unless the entire casing is metal or something, that doesn't seem worth it imo.

[–] echo64 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The use case is that you live with other people and other people want to use the TV that the ps5 is connected to, and you want to play ps5, and you aren't a jerk who hogs the TV all the time.

It's okay, demonstrably people want this, even if you're mad about it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm mad that people are being sunk by consumerism. The cost of living is sky high right now and people are wasting their money on products that don't make a whole lot of sense. Theres similar products that work much better for just a little bit more. Hell, buy a used tablet. At least that has processing like I mentioned. You can remote play through the tablet for a fraction of the cost.

[–] echo64 1 points 1 year ago

🙄 let people do what they want don't be a dick about it

[–] money_loo 1 points 1 year ago

I'm mad that people are being sunk by consumerism.

🙄🙄🙄🙄

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not a reddit thing though. People make one-offish comments everywhere. Maybe not in your inner circle specifically but in general i've seen a lot of forums and chat rooms growing up that are like that.

[–] echo64 1 points 1 year ago

sure, it was better here about it until recently, the quality of the community posts here has dropped dramatically in the past month

[–] ShunkW 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like I just heard about this device 2 days ago. They didn't seem to market it very hard.

[–] Zahille7 6 points 1 year ago

I heard about it for the first time when I saw this post/article today.

[–] npaladin2000 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do they realize this is just a PS5 remote terminal and nothing else?

[–] echo64 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yes, that is what i want. I've wanted for years. no using my phone or a tablet isn't a good experience to answer the next comment.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

may I ask how is a phone or tablet not a good experience I've slapped a controller to my phone to do it before and have had a great experience

[–] echo64 3 points 1 year ago

if you like it great good for you, I don't though. I don't want to play games on a frakentablet with accessories, not local games, not streamed games. I just want a thing that is put together by itself, is totally solid and doesn't need me to attach/detach things from it as it changes its use

if i had an android tablet that played switch games if i just have this controller attachment that lets me use some third party controls I wouldn't enjoy it, I would enjoy a nintendo switch by itself.

[–] mesamunefire 4 points 1 year ago

It's a PS U (wii u wannabe).

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I would have said me a few years ago.

The PSP was a AMAZING system. Not because of the games. But because it was such a great system for emulation.

But this is a post Steam Deck world.

[–] RGB3x3 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But this doesn't even do what a PSP does. It doesn't play games natively, it just streams from your PS5 that you already have to own.

It's essentially the Wii U.

[–] FooBarrington 5 points 1 year ago

The WiiU was it's own console that actually had interesting integrations with the tablet. The Portal can't do anything like that since there is no second screen.

It's more like a portable Steam Link.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wii U is a better console than the PS5 in part because of the game pad (not power wise)

This helps close the gap although the Wii U still comes out ahead

[–] criticalthreshold 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So this is like if the Switch charged you an extra $200 for the hand-held part?

This will be either hugely successful or will die an awful death and develop a PS Vita cult following.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There won't be a cult because this is no standalone device you can hack or play games on without a PS5.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wasn't based on Android? I mean... Somebody could eventually run something on there not big games that's for sure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even if it's android, the hardware is most likely not made for running games. You can buy android devices for emulation or indie games for way less money.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Of course but my point was that it will probably be "hacked" by someone.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This is just an Nvidia Shield - right?

[–] Sabin10 29 points 1 year ago

No, that would mean it can be used on it's own. It's literally a dumb terminal for the ps5 and nothing more.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

More like the Wii-U gamepad I think.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It's worse. Much much worse

[–] Pacmanlives 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Low demand product and are creating hype going into the holidays. I wish this was another PSP or Vita both of which I bought at release but this is not it. If I could play my PS5 games not streaming that would be amazing but it’s a streaming device that is needs WiFi connectivity. I am not expecting PS5 level of performance out of it based on the size and cost of this product. I really wonder who their target audience is and what market research they used for this one!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

How long you think it will take before we start seeing people posting pictures with the controller broken off, that doesn't look very sturdy when you're raging at someone.