- The PlayStation Portal will receive a big update this week
- Cloud streaming will exit its Beta phase and will be open to all PS Plus Premium subscribers
- Users can now stream their own PS5 games and make use of a host of new audio, accessibility, and UI changes.
The time has finally come, fellow PlayStation Portal owners and fans: cloud streaming for your own PS5 games is here.
In a massive, extensive update launching this week (November 5 at 6 pm PT / November 6 at 2 am GMT) for PlayStation Portal, Cloud Streaming will exit its Beta form and will now be fully available to PlayStation Plus Premium members. This is joined by a number of other new features and updates, all of which seek to improve the experience of playing games on the Portal, affecting the aesthetics and elegance of the audio and accessibility settings.
I had the opportunity to get some early information about the impending update and spoke with Takuro Fushimi, Senior Manager of Product Management at Sony, to learn about some of the features and I was excited about them beforehand as well. I have talked about the main ones below.
inside the clouds
The biggest new feature is that you can now cloud stream your own games from your library, and it’s coming out of Beta tomorrow (November 6)! This unlocks a great new way for PS5 or PS5 Pro players like me to solve their backlogs and offers the functionality that we PS5 fans and enthusiasts wanted from the Portal when it first launched in November 2023.
The only caveat is that you’ll only be able to stream select PS5 digital games in your library, and Sony says this will vary over time and depend on where you live. You can see the full list of games that can be streamed here.
A new coat of paint
The update also contains a massive overhaul of the Portal user interface. From the looks of it, it will look very elegant and its navigation will be even more intuitive.
With three different tabs for remote use, cloud streaming and a search option, the new look is easy to navigate and will ensure you can access what you want from your Portal as quickly as possible.
Personally, it will be refreshing to see a row of actual game art as icons on the home screen, instead of the actual menu.
And many other new features
Delving into the details of the update and the internal aspects of the experience it offers, Sony is introducing some additional features to add security, stability, and facilities to demonstrate key information. There is also support for audio improvements and other tweaks outlined in the full update.
For example, a key addition to whether your Portal will work well or not is a new network status screen, so you can quickly and efficiently get an idea of the strength of your Internet connection.
You can also now add a passcode to lock your Portal away from small or unwanted hands and, on a broader note, 3D audio support, both during remote play and during cloud streaming, is fully supported on Portal now, which is great and a great way to immerse yourself even further in the best PlayStation Portal games.
Overall, this is a great review of the gaming device and feels like a big step towards making PlayStation Portal the handheld many of us hoped it would be from the beginning. Either way, though, it’s definitely a big step in the “right” direction to unleash the Portal to its full potential.
A PlayStation Plus Premium subscription is still necessary to maximize the impact of these updates and changes, and to get “the most” out of your PlayStation Portal, but I hope this is just another step in the direction of opening up the device and its cloud streaming capabilities to more people on the lower tiers of the subscription service.
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