Exclusive: PlayStation Portal usage peaks at night, an hour after the PS5's does

Game File chats with Sony about its streaming handheld, one year in

PlayStation Portal. Image: PlayStation.com

The most popular time of day for PlayStation Portal owners to use their portable streaming device is 9pm, a Sony executive tells Game File.

That’s an hour later than the peak playing time for PlayStation 5 users.

Portal players might be night owls.

But Sony has a better theory.

“This could suggest scenarios like users playing on the console first, then later switching to PS Portal to play in another room—courtesy of PS Portal’s characteristics like the ability to play in another room—while their family is using the TV,” Hiromi Wakai, vice president of product management at Sony Interactive Entertainment, recently told me over email.

Wakai and I were corresponding just after the first birthday of the Portal, a device that initially confused many players but appears to have been a 2024 success.

The Portal looks like a portable PS5, but is a streaming-only device. Launched in November 2023, it spent its first year strictly capable (officially) of playing games beamed to it as they ran on a user’s PS5 console.

Last month, Wakai announced a major update to the Portal that will allow users to stream some PS5 games from the cloud through a new streaming beta option, no connection to a console required.

Cloud streaming was part of the plan for a while, Wakai told me: “The cloud game streaming option has always been in our roadmap since the early development stage of PlayStation Portal remote player.

“After launch, we heard from many of our users that they want cloud game streaming support—and of course, being gamers ourselves, we felt the same way.”

The $200 Portal appears to have had a solid first year. While Sony doesn’t release unit sales figures for the Portal, the unit has shown market strength in the U.S., for starters. The streaming device has consistently ranked as the top-selling gaming accessory in the U.S. (ranked by dollars), as tracked by industry firm Circana. In its report for September 2024, Circana noted that “3% of PlayStation 5 owners have purchased a PlayStation Portal to date," suggesting a healthy six-figure install base.

The Portal is not a dedicated handheld that can store and run games on its own. Sony’s most recent machine of that type, the PlayStation Vita, was discontinued in 2019.

In late November, Bloomberg reported that Sony is exploring development of a portable PS5 that could be years away from release, if it is made at all. A Sony rep declined to comment to the outlet at the time. (The Bloomberg report was published shortly after Game File sent questions to Wakai, which were ferried through Sony’s PR team and translators. So I was unable to ask her about it.)

Back in February, Wakai told Game File that the Portal was never planned to be a dedicated Vita-style handheld: “The initial discussions of this product started out from the question of how to expand the PS5 console game experience, not launch a separate handheld device,” she said.

As for Sony’s rivals:

• Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer recently told Bloomberg that his teams are exploring development of a handheld Xbox, but that it is likely years away; partnerships with existing portable hardware makers are more likely before then.

• Nintendo’s second consecutive hybrid portable/home console will be announced by March 31. This so-called Switch 2 is expected for release by the end of 2025.

In our new interview, Wakai said expansion of the Portal’s capabilities will be gradual.

“PS Portal was a new type of product for us, so we wanted to be extra careful to ensure our users get the best possible user experience,” she said, referring speficially to the addition of the PS5 game-streaming beta.

“We want to continue that approach with PS Portal, and make incremental steps based on community reception on the beta.”

As for the typical PS Portal player one year in, Wakai shared one other finding:

“Players who own a PS Portal tend to spend more time playing games than those who don’t. Of course, it’s likely that users who purchase PS Portal were naturally more engaged in the first place, however, our data shows that PS Portal owners tend to spend more time playing games compared to non-owners.”

Note: This is part 1 of a 2-part Game File interview with SIE leaders about some less-discussed parts of the PlayStation operation. The second is slated to be published for Game File subscribers next week. It will cover the development of Sony’s console system dashboard—and how they’ve updated the PS5’s. It is, to my knowledge, the first interview Sony has done on the topic.

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Item 2: In brief…

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• Riot co-founder Marc Merrill reacted to Bloomberg’s report on Reddit, writing, in part “we are not focused on the short term extraction of profits - we are focused on delivering exceptional value to our audience over the long term, again and again and again… Arcane crushed for players and so it crushed for us.”

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• The removal of the games, which were released over the past decade, is part of the company’s contentious year-long effort to delist older Cartoon Network and Adult Swim titles (some of which have been salvaged).

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• That arrangement suggests there will be news regarding a Valve-backed alternative to its own Steam Deck and, perhaps, some of the above-mentioned partnering between Xbox and third-party handled manufacturers.

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• The firm estimates that game publishers and game makers received investment from 734 venture capital firms in 2020, saw that number grow to 2,359 in 2021 due to the Covid gaming boom, but then fell to 1,142 in 2023, fell more in 2024 and will decline again next year.

• The reasons for investors’ cooling interest in pouring money into gaming, per the report: spiking interest rates, long game development cycles, increased user acquisition costs on mobile, regulatory intervention into big acquisitions, and players narrowing their focus to a small number of “forever games.” Also: “explosive interest in AI & machine learning has siphoned dollars from previously trendy categories.” [Full report]

👀 Nintendo will win the next console generation and either Microsoft or Sony will be squeezed out, according to DFC Intelligence’s 2025 annual market forecast.

• The group estimates 3.8 billion people played video games in 2024 and expects the 4 billion mark to be crossed by 2027.

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• The material may also wind up officially incorporated into Microsoft’s Master Chief Collection, and work for the collection could be a source of the leak.