- The PlayStation Portal is getting a huge new update this week
- Cloud streaming will come out of its Beta phase and be open to all PS Plus Premium subscribers
- Users can now stream their own PS5 games, and make use of a host of new audio, accessibility, and UI changes
It’s finally time, fellow PlayStation Portal owners and fans: cloud streaming for your own PS5 games is actually here.
In an extensive and huge update dropping this week (November 5 at 6pm PT / November 6 at 2am GMT) for the PlayStation Portal, Cloud Streaming will come out of its Beta form and will now be fully available for PlayStation Plus Premium members. It’s joined by a host of other new features and updates, all of which look to enhance the experience of playing games on the Portal, affecting aesthetics and the slickness of audio and accessibility settings.
I had the opportunity to be pre-briefed about the imminent update and spoke to Takuro Fushimi, Senior Manager, Product Management, at Sony, so I gained an insight into some of the features – and got excited about them ahead of time too. I’ve talked about the major ones below.
Into the clouds
The biggest new feature is that you can now cloud stream your own games from your library, and it’s launching out of its Beta stage tomorrow (November 6)! This unlocks an excellent new way for PS5 or PS5 Pro players like me to work their way through their backlogs, and delivers on the functionality we PS5 fanatics and enthusiasts wanted from the Portal when it first launched way back in November 2023.
The one caveat is that it is only select digital PS5 games in your library that you’ll be able to stream, and Sony says this will vary over time and depend on where you live. You can see the full list of streamable games here.
A new lick of paint
The update also contains a massive overhaul to the Portal’s UI. By the looks of things, it’s going to look as slick as heck and be even more intuitive to navigate.
With three distinct tabs for remote play, cloud streaming, and a search option, the new look is straightforward to navigate and will ensure you can get to what you want from your Portal as quickly as possible.
Personally, it’ll be refreshing to see a row of actual game art as icons on the home screen, as opposed to the current menu.
And a host of other new features
Getting more into the details of the update, and the internals of the experience it offers, Sony is introducing some extra features to add security, stability, and facilities to demonstrate key information. There’s also support for audio enhancements and other tweaks outlined in the full update.
For example, one addition that is key to knowing whether or not your Portal will perform well is a new Network Status Screen, so you can quickly and efficiently get an insight into the strength of your internet connection.
You can also now add a passcode to lock your Portal away from any small or unwanted hands, and on a larger note, support for 3D Audio – during both remote play and Cloud Streaming – is fully supported on the Portal now, which is excellent, and a great way to immerse yourself in the best PlayStation Portal games further.
All in all, this is a huge overhaul to the gaming device, and it feels like a huge step toward making the PlayStation Portal the handheld many of us hoped it would be from the off. Either way, though, it’s definitely a big move in the ‘right’ direction to unleash the Portal to its full potential.
It remains that you’ll still need a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription to maximize the impact of these updates and changes, and to get the ‘most’ out of your PlayStation Portal, but I’m hoping this is just another step in the direction of opening up the device, and its cloud streaming abilities, to more folks on the lower tiers of the subscription service.
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rob.dwiar@futurenet.com (Rob Dwiar)
