- 3% of PS5 owners have a PlayStation Portal
- This is equivalent to approximately 2 million units sold.
- The portable streaming device is used more at night
PlayStation Portal was initially quite difficult to find when it launched in November 2023, and was repeatedly sold out at most retailers. This might suggest that it was quite popular, but if you’re wondering what the actual sales figures for the remote-use accessory were, we now have a rough estimate.
According to data from market research firm Circana, 3% of PS5 owners have purchased PlayStation Portal by the end of 2024. This is not a huge number to go off of, however, we know that the PS5 has sold 65.5 million of units worldwide. . 3% of this figure equates to 1.965 million PlayStation Portal owners, indicating that it has been fairly successful overall despite some concerns that it would be too specific to have much of an impact.
In an interview with the Game File newsletter, Sony even provided some interesting statistics on PlayStation Portal usage. The most popular time to pick up the device is around 9 pm, which is an hour later than the 8 pm peak usage time for PS5.
According to Hirmoi Wakai, vice president of product management at Sony Interactive Entertainment, “this could suggest scenarios such as users playing on the console first and then switching to PS Portal to play in another room.” […] while his family watches television.”
If you need a quick refresher, PlayStation Portal is a remote-play handheld that requires a PS5 to use.
With what are actually two sides of a DualSense wireless controller placed over an 8-inch LCD screen, you stream games from your console over an internet connection. Although it can work while you’re out and about, we’ve found it’s more reliable at home when you treat it almost like a second screen.
While much of the functionality still relies on the PS5, Sony recently introduced a Cloud Game Streaming Beta, allowing PlayStation Plus Premium members to play directly from the cloud for the first time. It hasn’t been fully implemented yet, but the eventual release of this feature would further improve the usefulness of the accessory and potentially increase that sales number even more.