- PlayStation Portal is getting a huge new update this week
- Cloud streaming will exit its beta phase and be open to all PS Plus Premium subscribers
- Users can now stream their own PS5 games and enjoy a host of new audio, accessibility, and UI changes.
It’s finally time, fellow PlayStation Portal owners and fans: cloud streaming for your own PS5 games is actually here.
In a huge, comprehensive update released this week (November 5 at 6 p.m. PT / November 6 at 2 a.m. GMT) for the PlayStation Portal, Cloud Streaming will come out of its beta form and will now be fully available to PlayStation Plus Premium members. It’s joined by a host of other new features and updates, all of which aim to improve the gaming experience on the Portal, affecting the aesthetics and finesse of audio and accessibility settings.
I had the opportunity to get pre-briefed about the impending update and speak to Takura Fushimi, Senior Director of Product Management at Sony, which allowed me to get a sneak peek at some of the features – and I was also excited about it in advance. I’ve talked about the main ones below.
In the clouds
The biggest new thing is that you can now stream your own games to the cloud from your library, and it’s coming out of beta tomorrow (November 6)! This opens up a great new way for PS5 or PS5 Pro players like me to work their way through their backlogs and delivers the features that we PS5 fanatics and enthusiasts expected from the Portal when it first launched in November 2023.
The only downside is that you’ll only be able to stream certain digital PS5 games from your library, and Sony says this will vary over time and depend on where you live.
A new coat of paint
The update also contains a massive overhaul of the portal UI. At first glance, it will look as simple as possible and will be even more intuitive to navigate.
With three separate tabs for remote play, cloud streaming and a search option, the new look is simple to navigate and will get you to what you want from your portal as quickly as possible.
Personally, it will be refreshing to see a row of actual game artwork as icons on the home screen, as opposed to 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 additional features to add security, stability, and functionality to demonstrate key information. Audio improvements and other adjustments described in the full update are also supported.
For example, a key addition to knowing if your portal will work properly is a new network status screen, which allows you to quickly and efficiently get an overview of the strength of your Internet connection.
You can also now add a password to lock your Portal away from any small or unwanted hands, and on a broader note, support for 3D audio – during remote play and cloud streaming – is now fully supported on the Portal, which is great and a great way to further immerse yourself in the best PlayStation Portal games.
Overall, this is a major overhaul of the gaming device, and it seems like a big step forward in making PlayStation Portal the handheld that many of us were hoping for from the start. Either way, it’s certainly a big step in the “right” direction to unleash the portal to its full potential.
The fact remains that you’ll still need a PlayStation Plus Premium subscription to maximize the impact of these updates and changes and to get the most out of your PlayStation Portal, but hopefully this is just another step towards opening up the device and its cloud streaming capabilities to more people at the lower tiers of the subscription service.
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