The Battle of the Handhelds

There has been a lot of talk about handhelds. So what do we know? Well, we know that Xbox will be releasing a handheld. So there’s that, but what about Sony’s stance? Well, it’s peaked up a lot after the success of the PS Portal. We were one of the first to tell you that the surge in popularity would witness potential changes in stance. But with Xbox now in the ascendency to release something and the Nintendo Switch 2 news imminent. Sony has had to take a look at the situation and not lose sight of the fact of the position they are in.

Because yes, Sony is ahead in many ways, selling 5-1 against Xbox’s console, but at the same time, when you have Nintendo Switch 2 on the way and Xbox doing something. You have to respond. And unlike VR, they have to respond with something seriously that their studios can actually do good work with. I think they will, but at the same time, handhelds are now pushing a lot of momentum for a generation of new gamers. We’re getting past people just wanting to sit in front of the TV at home, people want to take their entertainment and games with them. So yeah, Sony will come out with a handheld. Whether they wait on what Xbox does. Time will tell, but what we have to remember is that Sony will have taken a lot of feedback from the success of the PS Portal. So there’s no way they don’t improve on the success of that. They won’t be left behind, that’s for sure.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is going to be the big one, though. A lot of people are interested in the successor to the Nintendo Switch. With that, it will need a Nintendo that is very smart and on their game. Because if Sony come back into this thing with maybe a different approach. It won’t change things because Nintendo is Nintendo and their games are the big sellers, particularly for the Asian market. But what it does do is give people options, and people like those, hence the success of the PS Portal.

Xbox is playing it very differently; they want the Asian market and just the mass population that brings. But at the same time, at the core of their whole experience is Xbox Game Pass and what that can offer in terms of games on the go. So I truly expect a core Xbox experience on the move with that one, with maybe also cloud offered in some way, but it’ll very much be a physical device only and now exclusively it’s own thing and not a hybrid as we originally thought. I think that’s where Xbox is with that.

One thing for sure, the handheld market is going to get a lot more competition from some of the main players. Nintendo will not have anything to worry about, as they’ve established themselves very well with what their product does. And it works, but maybe Sony and Xbox will make use of the situation in a different way that pushes to their strengths.