PlayStation Boss Says New Console Experiences Will Involve 'Leveraging Technologies That Can Be Used in Various Forms and Locations' — and I'm Convinced He's Teasing a PS6 Handheld

Recent comments from Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino person suggested PlayStation whitethorn determination towards much hybrid, Switch-like consoles successful the aboriginal to lucifer modern on-the-go players.

Speaking to Famitsu successful a peculiar interrogation marking the Japanese crippled magazine’s 40th anniversary, Nishino concisely touched upon aboriginal Sony hardware.

In notation to his 2024 remark that hardware won’t beryllium disappearing immoderate clip soon, Nishino was asked whether Sony’s PlayStation marque would proceed to absorption connected consoles. Nishino gave an affirmative answer: “My content that a console is indispensable for playing games hasn’t changed,” helium said, adding that Sony “wants to proceed providing its ain crippled consoles.”

Nishino besides mentioned that helium thinks "pick up and play" is the astir important prime for consoles nowadays. He said that processing caller crippled console experiences volition impact "leveraging technologies that tin beryllium utilized successful assorted forms and locations" and that this would alteration Sony "to make thing exciting."

"For example, though the PlayStation marque is powerfully associated with playing connected the TV successful the surviving room, we’re readying to merchandise monitors and speakers truthful that radical tin play comfortably successful different locations arsenic well,” Nishino said. “We developed the PlayStation Portal arsenic portion of this initiative."

Of course, Sony has taken the PlayStation marque distant from the TV galore times before, going backmost to the portable surface for the PSone successful the aboriginal 2000s and the Japan-only Pocketstation. Then there’s the Sony PSP and PSVita handhelds, Playstation VR, and the aforementioned PS5 companion handheld PlayStation Portal.

Back successful November 2025, Sony officially launched unreality streaming connected PlayStation Portal, which Nishino flagged arsenic an important diagnostic for the handheld. While distant play allows you to watercourse games straight from your PS5, unreality streaming allows you to bypass the PS5. This means you tin springiness your console a rest, oregon fto idiosyncratic other usage your PS5, either to play a crippled with you oregon bash thing other entirely. Nishino noted that “players look to beryllium comfy utilizing unreality streaming, and numbers are expanding astatine precise bully momentum. For example, the fig of users successful January 2026 was 1.5 times that of December 2025.”

With Playstation Portal, Nishino said Sony took connected the situation to make a instrumentality that would connection a caller benignant of gameplay experience. “We were thinking, ‘Let’s effort this, let’s effort that,’ and I’d similar america to determination guardant with processing products portion exploring assorted ideas successful this way.”

Nishino added that portion helium believes games volition proceed to beryllium 1 of the “essential sources of entertainment” for radical successful the future, lifestyles proceed to alteration and that gathering these needs is simply a situation for hardware developers to tackle.

Nishino besides reiterated Sony's caller altered stance connected PC releases. Last week, Sony nixed PC releases from descriptions of its motorboat strategy for first-party titles. Sony's caller main stance is that it volition absorption connected PS5-exclusive releases for archetypal enactment single-player games, with unrecorded work titles apt to caput to some PS5 and PC to bolster the playerbase. Nishino noted that Sony volition proceed to marque level choices connected a per-game basis, releasing connected PC successful cases wherever that would "maximize the gaming experience."

What precisely the PS6 volition beryllium has fueled gossip for a while, with rumors of a Switch-like dockable console, oregon adjacent a console with a abstracted handheld. However, immoderate the PS6 ends up being, it’s apt to travel with an costly terms tag. With Valve’s Steam Machine precocious triggering shocked reactions for its $1,050 starting price, representation manufacturers suggest rising costs could besides spot adjacent procreation consoles similar the PS6 transcend the $1,000 mark, and Sony whitethorn propulsion backmost the console’s merchandise to debar specified precocious pricing.

This isn’t the archetypal PS6 handheld tease, either. Last year, Moore’s Law Is Dead reported connected an unannounced PS6 handheld that would beryllium dockable and backwards compatible with PS4 and PS5 games. There was besides a little notation of what was described arsenic a PS6 S, which sounded similar it could beryllium to the PS6 what the Xbox Series S is to the Xbox Series X. If true, you’d presume it would beryllium a cheaper option.

Verity Townsend is simply a Japan-based freelance writer who antecedently served arsenic editor, contributor and translator for the crippled quality tract Automaton West. She has besides written astir Japanese civilization and movies for assorted publications.