Rumor: More PlayStation Handheld Details Leak
Sony’s rumored next-gen PlayStation handheld console will feature built-in support for AI upscaling, says a reliable insider.
A reputable insider has revealed some fresh technical details surrounding PlayStation’s long-rumored new handheld console. The supposedly leaked information suggests that the new PlayStation handheld system could borrow a major feature from the PS5 Pro and come equipped with just as much RAM as the base PS5.
Talk of a new PlayStation handheld first began circulating last year, with several insiders alleging that the popularity of the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck beckoned Sony to give the portable console space another shot. The Japanese gaming giant is no stranger to handhelds, of course, as it’s behind the mega-successful PSP and the commercially-failed PS Vita. Sony has avoided the handheld market since the PS Vita’s discontinuation in 2019, but this changed with the launch of the Remote Play-focused PlayStation Portal in late 2023, which turned out to be a massive hit.
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Many speculate that the Portal was a test bed to gauge demand for a new handheld console, and its success encouraged Sony to finally begin work on a more powerful, standalone PlayStation portable. PC hardware insider KeplerL2 has periodically divulged key information about this new PlayStation handheld system, and now, they’re back with a few more updates. In a recent NeoGAF forum thread, the insider claimed that the new PlayStation handheld will be powered by an AMD chip that supports AI upscaling, which immediately brings to mind the PS5 Pro’s novel PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) upscaler.
Next PlayStation Handheld Could Be Equipped With PS5 Pro’s PSSR AI Upscaling Tech
Essentially PlayStation’s proprietary AI-driven upscaler, PSSR is one of the central tenets of the PS5 Pro, and should KeplerL2’s info hold true, Sony could leverage the tech in the next PlayStation handheld. The portable will reportedly have 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM (base PS5 has 16GB of GDDR6 RAM) but only one-third of the PS5‘s memory bandwidth – computing to about 150GB/s. However, performance deficits are expected to be offset by 4MB of L2 cache and 16MB of MALL cache – similar to AMD’s Infinity Cache tech, which isn’t present in the PS5. Notably, the new PlayStation handheld is said to be built on AMD’s UDNA (RDNA 5) GPU architecture, which offers significantly improved performance per compute unit.
Interestingly, KeplerL2 also revealed that AMD is currently not planning a Z3 mobile chip – which would enable AI upscaling for OEM handhelds – for its next-gen APU (accelerated processing unit) architectures, and is instead looking to skip a generation for the same – likely around 2029. Therefore, AI upscaling could end up being exclusive to the new PlayStation handheld’s chipset, which may give it a hefty edge against future iterations of the Steam Deck, Asus ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion GO, etc.
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