Sony is reportedly working on its first full-fledged gaming handheld since 2011's PS Vita.
A recent leak has been corroborated by a team of games industry experts.
It has been speculated for a while that Xbox is working on its own handheld games console, but it seems it's not alone – Sony is said to be planning its own Switch/Steam Deck rival, too.
Having successfully tested the waters with the PlayStation Portal, it is claimed that a successor to the PS Vita is in the works.
Bloomberg reported last week that prototypes are already in development and that "people familiar with its development" said it will potentially play PS5-standard games without needing to be connected to a PS5 or cloud gaming service.
The PlayStation Portal requires either – having originally launched as a way to play your own PS5's games remotely, and then being expanded to allow PS Plus Premium members to access games over the internet.
Now the renowned games tech testers at Digital Foundry have corroborated Bloomberg's report: "What's interesting about this is that we actually heard about this handheld some months ago from a couple of sources," said John Linneman on the DF Direct podcast.
"We're not in the business of leaking things, but it's interesting that this has finally started to make its rounds. Because it has sort of confirmed what we had seen and heard off the record."
There are no further details on the new Sony handheld at this time, but if it's anywhere as good as the PS Vita (but modernised) then you can count me in.
While it wasn't majorly successful, the PS Vita was (and still is, in my eyes) a superb handheld games machine. Coming with an OLED display when such a thing was reasonably rare, it looked great.
There were some superb PS Vita games too, including Gravity Rush, Tearaway and WipEout 2048. I'm also a fan of Uncharted: Golden Abyss – the only older Uncharted game that's never been given a modern remaster.
In fact, the PlayStation Portable is a particular fave too, and I have a stack of favourite PSP games I still play on my Anbernic RG556 Android-powered handheld.
I for one am thrilled that Sony might reconsider re-entering the handheld gaming scene, although Nintendo, Xbox and Valve might be a tad less enthused.
