Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Sometimes Stupid Works”.
All right, the one I wanted to talk about was the PlayStation portal. Ah, we shot what okay, oh I’ve, Just Seen stuff online that looks rough. I haven’t, I haven’t actually used it. You know what I would love to hear what you have gathered about it based on community sentiment, and then I would like to share my own experience, having used it and worked on a review for it, which will be coming out.
Probably in the next few days. Cool so, as I say, this, I’ve heard genuinely nothing from lonus or anyone else at lonus Media Group. All I’ve seen is just some random stuff on the internet from other users and what I’ve last week just looking at the tops of people’s heads.
So he doesn’t know anything pretty much to be honest, um but yeah I. What I’ve seen so far is laggy mess. Basically, that’s it just clips of like people trying to play Horizon and having it just chug over and over again um other various games, where it’s very, very laggy and it it it doesn’t seem like they’re using it in super wild scenarios. Like most, these things is someone sitting on a couch um so like it doesn’t feel like they’re putting it in a disad disadvantageous position or anything so yeah. My takeaway was just rough. Reviews are out for the PlayStation portal, the portable device that allows Wi-Fi remote play connected to a PlayStation 5 and only a PlayStation 5.
Many reviewers spoke highly of the play experience, While others criticized the concept of a single-purpose portable, especially one that lacks a web browser. Making it impossible to use with public Wi-Fi that has any kind of verification on it or authentication. It also cannot connect to bluetooth headphones, meaning that users who want wireless audio will have to pay over a $ 100 for PlayStation pulse earbuds or headphones when they come out in the coming months. Nevertheless, nevertheless, many have defended the portal as a great dad device allowing them to allow their roommates or children to have the TV without giving up on gaming time. The portal has been quickly selling out with some scalpers selling it for over double its MSRP. Does any of that change how you feel about it at all? I I want to know.
I want to know what the audience thinks of this too hold on I’m going to I’m going to do a poll here poll time. As far as I can tell, if something has the PlayStation brand on it, it’s going to be sold out and scalped to all hell for a pretty significant period of time. Um, I don’t know, may maybe maybe uh Playstation needs to try to post somebody from valve.
So they can figure out um pre- makak enough stock of things before they launch it, I’m not sure yeah. These are going for around 300 bucks. It looks so like, like yeah. Here’S 14 bids 15 minutes left a little over $ 300 for a Playstation portal ships. Next business day in hand um that is uh over a $ 100 higher than the MSRP for this thing, which is 199. So, oh man, how do I do this? My review is largely quite positive. Oh interesting, that’s cool to hear I am not thrilled about the lack of Bluetooth.
I hope that Sony will backpedal on that. There should be nothing that would prevent them from making Bluetooth work in the future. I’M not aware of any modern Wi-Fi uh, Wi-Fi chipset that doesn’t also handle Bluetooth. So the fact that it has Wi-Fi at all means it has Bluetooth um. So I would. I would like to see them address that I there are.
There are some other things that I’m not super happy about. I think the battery life could have been improved. However, however, however, however, the thing that I think a lot of people are overlooking here shoot I missed the results of that poll. What happened to it? Doesn’T it normally stay in the chat until I dismiss it? Did someone dismiss it? Okay? Well, I uh they have they have durations, it might have expired. Okay, uh! It’S it’s in the wait, the PlayStation portal, one yeah! I think you just shrank it! No! I didn’t. I didn’t do anything: okay, well, results are 4 % of people said yes, 35 % of people said me, and 61 % of people said no, but you’re talking to a PC audience.
Yeah. That’S true. Okay, so hear me out at 200, like a bunch of these NOS sorry to interrupt, but a bunch of these NOS are probably people that don’t even own PlayStation. So why would they buy the the portable thing? Okay, but I didn’t ask, would you buy? I just said PlayStation portal: you know yes, no, okay, anyway, you, you know how people answer this stuff.
That’S true! The point is, I think, if we consider the functionality it’s pretty compelling, obviously you could get a backbone for your phone. That’S something we talk about. You just get like a little controller, your phone, but it’s not going to have nearly the ergonomics of the portal. It feels like a dual sense controller, which it is because it basically is it’s a dual sense controller, with a with an 8 in screen in the middle.
That’S another major factor that screen is way bigger than what you’re going to have on a almost any phone. I think that for the functionality, if you’re the kind of person who would use it, it’s a pretty good price, it’s EX extremely easy to use, and if you have good Wi-Fi, we found it worked pretty reliably. The other major justification for it is that how what like? What would you have wanted them to do? I guess would be my my follow-up question. If they had opened it up, I think there would have been a strong business case for needing the price to be higher because all of a sudden you’d have people buying this thing just to stream their PC games or their Xbox, or you know, whatever they cas Or watch movies or whatever, and they would have to actually make money on it to make this make any sense on their balance sheet. Instead, they took a very conso likee approach to it and we break it down in the video for $ 200. It’S a lot of Hardware.
You are getting a dual sense controller. You are getting a battery, you are getting a mid-tier Qualcomm s, so you are getting an 8 inch screen, you’re getting Wi-Fi storage Ram, you’re, getting presumably some kind of margin for Sony’s Retail Partners that they have to distribute these things through. How could they have possibly gone any tighter on the margins, for this $ 200 is a really compelling price. It’S a lot of money $ 200 is a freaking lot of money for an accessory for a $ 450 device right like if you told me, hey here’s an accessory for your. You know $ 50,000 car, it cost 2. Grand I’d be sitting here going are like.
Are you kidding me right, like that, doesn’t make any sense, so this is obviously a very expensive accessory, but as someone who used game streaming a lot on a device that frankly didn’t have much utility outside of just streaming from my PC, the Nvidia Shield portable, the Original one, the little clamshell like game controller with a screen on it, one um I loved, and if I recall correctly, it was actually priced higher than this and other than playing some basic Android games, which, if you guys remember at the time, didn’t really exist with Proper controller support there was almost nothing right so aside from playing some Android games, the only thing it did was stream from your PC and, in my mind this is the same thing, but a really smooth setup experience like it’s. It’S it’s Normie proof it’s it’s! Actually! A very friendly setup experience and for PlayStation yeah, I um, I I think just off the top of my head like USD, I think, a a PlayStation dual sense controller is like 60 bucks, um there’s like a huge portion of your cost right there. Oh, that was terrible.
Please don’t do that. Oh sorry, yeah! No! You’Re good! I can’t even tell you to turn away from the mic to cough CU. It’S attach to your head.
Everybody get in line everybody! Sorry, it’s a lyric from a song! Oh anyway, you guys. I think Dan was was referencing Chocolate Rain, not not your old Boomer. His his advice is extremely sound and reasonable yeah. So so this one you guys Shield portable 16 gigs.
Let’S go this thing still costs as much as the stupid portal. That’S kind of weird! Actually, oh they’re, like kind of a collector’s item or something now I think I saw someone trying to sell a dev kit for like $ 1,000 or something a while ago. Obviously they weren’t going to get that much for it, but uh hey. It was worth an effort to a collector worth worth a try to see if you can find a collector or something yeah yeah next topic. Well, what did I convince you of anything or do you just you still think it’s stupid or what come on help me out here? No, I I don’t. I don’t think it’s stupid necessarily if, if it works well like uh, if the lagging problem is not a thing um I mean it’s a thing: you’re gon na have to have good Wi-Fi, like I don’t know.
If you remember this but sense, I bought a Ruckus access point because I was having so much trouble with streaming to my shield game stream. Yeah like you, you need a good access point and that doesn’t mean an expensive one means a good one. Sorry does it support Wi-Fi 6? No, that’s another big, however. However.
However, the difference in the differences between Wi-Fi 5 and five uh, Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 are not nearly as noticeable to the average consumer as the differences between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E unintuitively. Well, I I it’s like it’s messed up, man, why? Why do they got to why they got to be like that? Why can’t you just have a naming scheme that makes sense? Who Do You Think You Are usbi like I just I can’t um so they’re trying to compete. The main benefits of Wi-Fi 6 over Wi-Fi 5 are to do with large deployments with many clients connected so range and throughput to a single device are are, are, are not markedly different, um going from five to six, but they are going from 6 to 6E. Now that would have been a game Cher for this if it supported Wi-Fi 6 e, and if you had your PlayStation wired CU, remember if your PlayStation is on Wi-Fi, it’s Wi-Fi, 6 right, so having 6E on the portal would just be added cost for no reason Whatsoever for that use case, but if the PlayStation was wired and you had a Wi-Fi 6E portable device, that would result in a much better streaming experience. But the thing is that wouldn’t be $ 200.
That’S the thing that I think a lot of people are missing on the portal is Sony is not gouging on this thing they are charging, as far as I can tell the barest minimum that they have to to make this thing make any sense to ship at All because they want to sell more software, that’s the play here and I just I feel, like a lot of people are missing that and they’re just looking at it going. Oh, this thing’s stupid. It’S like yeah sure it’s kind of stupid, but at $ 200 it’s allowed to be a little bit stupid. It’S allowed to be more of an appliance in my mind, and I have some hope that it will get hacked. Apparently it’s running Android 13 people are already that far that they figured out what exactly is going on in this thing, so I I feel like it’s got to be a matter of time before someone jailbreaks it, I uh that could be very fun.
That could be pretty cool, but I feel like that’s probably a big part of why Sony is not putting a web browser on it, because that can be a significant point of Ingress for um attempts to kind of break into these devices right, yeah and yeah. Miko says um lacking Bluetooth. Headphone support is not reasonable. You know what that’s. That is ridiculous. That’S fair enough, and – and I I go after that – hard in the video – is there a 3.5 minut Jack? Yes and the speakers are pretty good.
So it’s not like you. Don’T have other options but not reporting Bluetooth, audio blows. I would yeah I I would swing at them for the no Bluetooth audio as well, but having a 3.5 mil Jack and having good speakers is like I don’t know, I would just plug in headphones, and I’m pretty me that much personally, I’m pretty upset about the Battery life, it’s less than half of what the Logitech g-cloud does, and the g-cloud is is an another example of a of a streaming first device that you know I thought was stupid and then ultimately liked. Even if it’s for different reasons and um than than the the PlayStation portal .