Sony’s PlayStation handheld has half the performance of PS5

Sony’s upcoming PlayStation handheld, which has been rumored for a while now, is likely to have some decent performance. Sony hasn’t officially announced this handheld yet, so it’s not really possible to know just how good the performance will be. Assuming the device ever even makes it to release. However, new information has popped up about the hardware that sheds more light on details that weren’t previously known.

For example, its estimated pricing is going to be around $400 to $500. Keep in mind that these are estimates, and the figures are based on what sort of performance it’s going to deliver. Sony could always come up with entirely different pricing. That being said, if the price is around $400 to $500, then Sony’s handheld, codenamed Project Canis, would be on par with a 512GB Steam Deck in terms of cost, while putting out better performance. It’s an exciting prospect for the PlayStation fanbase. Considering the only handheld Sony currently offers is strictly for game streaming, Canis could prove to be a popular piece of hardware. It’s certainly the right time for it, given how popular handhelds have become over the past several years.

The upcoming PlayStation handheld will be half the performance of PS5

Half the performance of the PS5 might not sound that exciting, but it’s important to remember that this is going to play games locally, and not through Remote Play or cloud streaming. What’s more is that performance should be better than the PS4 and PS4 Pro. According to Moore’s Law is Dead on YouTube, who recently shared specs of the PlayStation handheld, the GPU inside will have between 12 and 20 RDNA compute units that will be clocked anywhere from 1.6GHz to 2.2GHz. It should also have higher ray-tracing performance thanks to the improvements AMD has made with RDNA 5.

As reported by Wccftech, this should allow it to outperform the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X. It’s also rumored to support native PS5 games. So, at the end of the day, it should still feel like playing PS5 on the go.

The PS6 will have about three times better performance than the base PS5

For those who are more interested in the main console, Sony’s upcoming PS6 is starting to sound like a significant upgrade from PS5 and PS5 Pro. Again, while real-world performance could change come launch time, the shared specs begin to paint a picture of what’s possible. In terms of rasterization performance, the PS6 will have about three times better performance than the PS5. Compared to the PS5 Pro, performance will be about double. The hardware is said to have fewer compute units than the PS5 Pro, but they’ll be faster, so this will result in better performance. Both the PS6 and the new PlayStation handheld are suspected to launch sometime in 2027 or 2028.