Get ready, because Sony might be cooking up something big in the handheld space. According to a new report from Japanese outlet Sumahodigest, the company is working on a brand-new PlayStation handheld that's aiming for a late 2027 release. And no, this isn't another PlayStation Portal situation.
The key difference here is that this device is said to be a standalone handheld that runs games natively, not just a remote-play accessory for your PS5. That means it would be Sony's first real portable console since the PS Vita. If you've been waiting for a proper follow-up to the PSP and Vita era, this could finally be it.
On the compatibility front, the report claims the handheld is targeting native PS4 game support, along with some optimized PS5 titles. There's even talk that it could eventually handle PS6-era games down the line. That's a pretty ambitious scope, and it would put the device in a completely different league from the cloud-streaming-focused PlayStation Portal.
Under the hood, things get even more interesting. The handheld is rumored to pack a custom SoC co-developed by Sony and AMD, built on TSMC's 3nm process. The chip is said to combine Zen 6c and low-power Zen 6 LP CPU architectures, with a GPU based on RDNA 5 featuring 16 compute units. Other rumored specs include 24GB of LPDDR5X memory and a high-speed NVMe SSD. If those numbers hold up, this thing would be seriously powerful for a portable.
Graphics tech is another big talking point. The new handheld is reportedly set to support Sony's next-gen upscaling tech, PSSR 3.0. Since handhelds are always fighting power and thermal limits, AI upscaling could let the device render at lower internal resolutions and still deliver a sharp final image, taking pressure off the GPU. Frame generation is also mentioned as a possible feature.
The report stresses that this isn't just a shrunken PS5. Instead, it's described as new PlayStation hardware built specifically with mobile gaming in mind. That's an important distinction, and it suggests Sony is thinking carefully about how to make a handheld that actually makes sense in 2027 and beyond.
One more juicy detail: the rumor suggests this handheld could launch around the same time as the next-gen PS6, also reportedly targeting late 2027. If true, Sony might be planning to push both home consoles and handhelds simultaneously, letting players share the PlayStation ecosystem across both devices. Of course, none of this has been confirmed by Sony yet, so treat it all as rumor for now. What do you think, would you pick up a true PlayStation handheld if it actually happens?
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