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Nov 10, 2023

Sony’s new Q handheld is official: 8

By Jay Peters and Sean Hollister Sony has officially confirmed it’s working on

By Jay Peters and Sean Hollister

Sony has officially confirmed it's working on a PlayStation handheld to make it easier to play your PS5 games. It was announced during Wednesday's PlayStation Showcase and is called Project Q.

"We will launch a dedicated device that enables you to stream any game from your PS5 console using Remote Play over Wi-Fi," PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said during the PlayStation Showcase. "Internally known as ‘Project Q,’ it has an 8-inch HD screen and all of the buttons and features of the DualSense wireless controller."

More specifically, it’ll have an LCD screen running games at up to 1080p and 60fps over Wi-Fi, according to a Sony press release, and will feature both the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback of the DualSense. The Q handheld is set to launch later this year, just like the PlayStation Bluetooth earbuds announced Wednesday, though Sony didn't say exactly when or how much the new device might cost.

According to the fine print at the bottom of Sony's presentation, games you play on the Q must be installed on a PlayStation 5 console itself — it's apparently designed as a companion for your own PS5, not something that would play games natively like a Steam Deck or phone or even stream them from the cloud.

However, Sony is one of the foremost companies with a cloud gaming service, one it currently seems to be overhauling based on the many job postings we dug up, so it's possible that the Q adds cloud gaming at a later date. It would seem weird to omit services that make Sony more money.

Sony's brief tease didn't address whether you’d be able to use the Q to stream games outside of your house: Sony's Remote Play does currently support connections over cellular, though you might need to tether it to a phone or hotspot since Sony has only mentioned Wi-Fi.

Rumors about the handheld first surfaced earlier this year thanks to a report from Insider Gaming. That report nailed a lot about the device, including that it relies on Remote Play and wouldn't be a cloud gaming device, the 8-inch LCD screen, the DualSense resemblance, and the maximum resolution and frame rate. The report also said the handheld was codenamed the Q Lite — I’d say the Project Q name is close enough.

With Project Q, Sony seems to be responding to the increased popularity of handhelds with its own offering. The Nintendo Switch has been an absolute smash hit, of course, but with newer entrants like Valve's Steam Deck and Asus’ ROG Ally, we’re seeing a lot of ways to play more modern games on newer hardware than the aging Switch. In a classic Sony move, Project Q has its own quirk in that it can only stream games over Wi-Fi, but if you’re looking for a Sony-made way to play the latest PlayStation games on a handheld, you might want to put some money aside for Project Q.

If you want to try Remote Play to stream games from your PS5, you don't need to wait for Sony's handheld. Most any iPhone, Android phone, Windows, or Mac can do it, and there's even a Linux app you can load onto the Steam Deck called Chiaki.

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