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A rediscovered Sony Interactive Entertainment patent application suggests that PlayStation Portal may have been conceived as a PS4 remote player. The patent in question was filed way back in 2015 and made rounds on gaming forum NeoGAF in 2017. It was also reported on by a number of gaming publications. The illustrations within the filing look an awful lot like the newly released handheld.
Could Sony have planned the PlayStation Portal for PS4?
The aforementioned illustration, which can be viewed below, was evidently designed with the DualShock 4 in mind, but the layout is pretty much the same as the PS5’s Portal. We have reported on a number of interesting patents over the years, so this one simply got lost in time, and no one thought of it over the last six months until Reddit user kasual7 somehow stumbled upon it.
At the time, the patent was widely referred to as Sony’s attempt at a “Switch-like” console or a successor to the beloved PS Vita. We got a basic remote player instead.
Sony has said that it may consider adding more features to the Portal in the future, including cloud streaming. Currently, the handheld can only play games installed on the PS5.