Project Q – here’s “portable Playstation 5” – but there’s a catch

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With Project Q, Sony will take up the fight with handheld consoles such as Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck. But there are many question marks surrounding its limitations.

Project Q looks like Sony split a PS5 controller in half and mounted a screen between the halves. Like the Dualsense controller for Playstation 5, Project Q supports adaptive trigger buttons and haptic feedback.

The 8-inch screen, an LCD, can reproduce the games in 1080p and 60 fps. Sony has so far not said what Project Q will cost, but the fact that the company chose LCD over OLED could possibly be to lower the price.

Namely, this is not a stand-alone console like the Nintendo Switch or Valve’s Steam Deck (or like Sony’s older consoles like the PSP and Vita). To use it, the games must be installed on the Playstation 5 and streamed to the Q over wifi. It is more to be considered as a companion to the PS5: if the TV is busy, the user can choose the smaller screen instead. In this way, it is more reminiscent of Nintendo’s huge flop Wii U, which possibly does not bode well for Sony.

A trump card can of course be the ability to stream games over the cloud, via wifi or 5g. Both the gaming and telecoms industries – not least Ericsson – strongly believe that the latter option will be successful on a broad front. But remarkably, during its Playstation Showcase on May 24, Sony said nothing about Project Q being equipped with that feature.

Project Q will be released later this year

Remotely playing PS5 titles is already possible: all that is required in addition to a Playstation 5 is a controller and a regular mobile phone or computer.

When Project Q is released later this year, it will likely be called something else, and perhaps some of the question marks will have been resolved by then.

In addition to Project Q, the Playstation Showcase also featured demonstrations of a number of games. Developer Bungie showed a trailer for Marathonsort of a sequel to the game of the same name that the company made before they broke through with the game series Halo. Also, is a remake of the classic Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in progress.