Feed: Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
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Title: The PlayStation Portal is still flawed, but IΓÇÖve learned to love it
as a new dad

Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:30:00 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/t...

When it was first announced, the PlayStation Portal was sort of a joke. The
Nintendo Switch was a megahit, and many PlayStation fans had long hoped Sony
would respond with a new handheld of its own. It did… in the form of a $200
peripheral that can only stream games over the internet and required you to
already own a PlayStation 5. Instead of a successor to the beloved yet
famously neglected PlayStation Vita, we got the PlayStation version of the
Wii U GamePad.

My colleague Devindra Hardawar called it ΓÇ£bafflingΓÇ¥ in our PlayStation
Portal review, and many of his criticisms still stand two years later. I was
happy to ignore the Portal as a result. Besides, I already owned a bunch of
devices that covered every way I wanted to play. The PS5 and PC were for the
ΓÇ£prettyΓÇ¥ games I want to sit and revel in on my monitor, while the Switch
and Steam Deck were for playing away from my desk. This combination worked
for me.

Then, a few months ago, my wife and I had our first child. She is wonderful,
and we are happy. But life pre-kids is often incongruous with life post-kids.
My old routines and any pretense of personal time are gone. And while this
might be the single least important aspect of my life thatΓÇÖs changed since
becoming a father, the whiplash of going from ΓÇ£mid-30s man who spends too
much time thinking about video gamesΓÇ¥ to ΓÇ£mid-30s man who wants to enjoy
his hobby but is now responsible for raising a kidΓÇ¥ has completely turned
me around on the Portal, which my wife gifted to me a few months prior to our
babyΓÇÖs birth.

To be clear, IΓÇÖm not here jonesing to play games all day instead of bonding
with my daughter. But every parent needs a break sometimes, and whatever
ΓÇ£freeΓÇ¥ time I get these days is inherently staggered. ItΓÇÖs not just the
usual changing, feeding, tummy-time monitoring and diaper pail maintenance;
itΓÇÖs the 20-30 minutes of prep and clean-up that often comes with each of
those. Topping up the formula dispenser here, running out for more wipes and
baby laundry detergent there. Spending 10 minutes pedaling her legs so she
can get a fart out.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

All of this has been much more fun than it sounds, but for gaming purposes,
it means IΓÇÖve almost exclusively switched to things I can play in short
bursts. ItΓÇÖs been a lot of Balatro, a lot of clearly timed multiplayer
games like Rocket League, plus some slower, single-player games that let you
save and quit at any time. These kinds of games have always been best suited
to handhelds, and are thus the ones the Portal has helped me enjoy again when
we get the baby to bed.

Yes, I could just use the Switch or Steam Deck. But I dropped $500 on this
damn PS5 back in 2020. I have more games in my PlayStation library than any
other platform. I want to (slowly) make my way through exclusives like Ghost
of Yotei. I donΓÇÖt want my fancy console to collect dust, and as silly as it
sounds, finding the energy to sit at my desk and give my full attention to a
game is difficult after a day of work and parenting. Most nights IΓÇÖd prefer
to unspool on the couch with my wife, and I need to be nearby to lend a hand
or change a diaper. The Portal has allowed me to do this, and itΓÇÖs kept my
PlayStation from turning into a funky-looking paperweight in the process.

The Portal fills this niche mostly by just being a handheld device, but it
has its own benefits. The controls are fantastic, essentially splitting a
normal PS5 controller in half. They give everything an ΓÇ£officialΓÇ¥ feel
that you just canΓÇÖt replicate with a smartphone controller like a Backbone.
I wish the 8-inch display had a more color-rich OLED panel, but itΓÇÖs still
good for an LCD, roomier than my phoneΓÇÖs screen and sharp enough at 1080p.
IΓÇÖm a wired headphone guy, so I can live with its lack of Bluetooth audio,
as asinine as that is. And while IΓÇÖm no longer paying $160 per year for
PlayStation Plus Premium, those that do can now stream certain games directly
from the cloud without having to boot up their console. That worked fine in
the short time I tried it.

The back of the PlayStation Portal. Photo by Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

My experience with the Portal is entirely predicated on the fact that I live
in a modest apartment with decent Wi-Fi. ItΓÇÖs still a streaming device, so
thereΓÇÖve been some hiccups here and there. Using it for shooters or
fighting games is just asking for frustration, and things start to
destabilize if we have several streams going in the house at once. But under
normal conditions, IΓÇÖve been able to play competitive multiplayer games
like Rematch without ruinous lag, and I just havenΓÇÖt had the crushing
connection issues some folks have suffered through with single-player fare.
As long as I keep the PS5 in rest mode, everything turns on and eventually
works as it should.

ItΓÇÖs a weird one: I still wouldnΓÇÖt recommend the Portal to most PS5
owners, nor would I change all that much about our initial review. Of course,
receiving it as a gift skews my perspective. Yet itΓÇÖs made it easier to fit
some games into my new life all the same. Looking after an infant has been
one of my greatest joys, but itΓÇÖs undeniably exhausting. With the Portal, I
can still enjoy a platform IΓÇÖve heavily invested in ΓÇö provided I donΓÇÖt
pass out first.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/t...
flawed-but-ive-learned-to-love-it-as-a-new-dad-120000850.html?src=rss

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