Sony appears to be planning to re-enter the handheld gaming market. Following their venture into portable streaming with the PlayStation Portal, new reports suggest the company is now working on a more ambitious, in-house semiconductor project to power their next portable device.
Based on @Jukanlosreve's report (via Wccftech), Sony is evaluating a low-power handheld project codenamed “Jupiter”. This console is expected to feature a custom chip that's reportedly being developed by AMD and is slated for manufacturing on Samsung's high-end SF2P 2nm node.
This new PlayStation portable could be conceptually similar to a “mini-PS5”, similar to how the PS Vita was to the PS3. This means it might not run full PlayStation 5 games as well as the original console, but it will probably run at a lower resolution. Moreover, opting for a custom AMD SoC makes strategic sense. It allows Sony to fine-tune the chip for the desirable performance-per-watt efficiency, leveraging AMD's strong history with APUs in the portable space and their ongoing collaboration on PlayStation consoles.
While a formal announcement for a portable console remains unconfirmed, a potential official reveal might still take a while. Samsung is still working on having its SF2P 2nm node in volume production, and according to Trendforce, that will happen in 2026.
KitGuru says: Would you buy a new PlayStation handheld? What kind of performance are you expecting from such a device?