Playstation Portal: Sony expands streaming capabilities

Sony's Playstation Portal is little more than a screen with two controller elements. It cannot play games itself and is instead designed to stream titles over the local network from your own PlayStation 5. The absence of a cloud gaming function caused confusion among many fans at launch. Sony is now rectifying this oversight: The PlayStation Portal now also supports cloud gaming.

This means that games are streamed from Sony's servers; accordingly, you can also play on the go, in hotels, or in households where your PS5 is not constantly present. It's a major improvement that opens up new usage scenarios, but it also comes with some limitations. First and foremost: To use cloud gaming on the Playstation Portal, a subscription to Playstation Plus Premium is required. It costs 17 euros per month, or 152 euros per year.

With such a membership, you can then play games from the Playstation Plus and Classics catalog. However, selected titles from your library can also be streamed to the Playstation Portal with the subscription. Sony provides a list of compatible games on its website. Sony recommends an internet connection of 15 Mbps for cloud gaming.

Cloud gaming already tested as a beta

Sony has already been testing cloud gaming on Playstation Portal as a beta since last year. However, beta participants could exclusively stream games included in the subscription. The fact that many titles from their personal libraries are now playable is therefore also a new feature for these users.

The new update for Playstation Portal also brings a revised interface with an improved search function. Additionally, Playstation Portal now supports Sony's surround technology, 3D Audio.

(dahe)