Sony appears to be planning a portable game console. Enough rumors have circulated on the Internet that it seems certain that Sony is developing a portable game console. What is less certain is what Sony's next handheld gaming console will offer. Since the company already has PS Portal, it is safe to assume that this console will be a stand-alone console, not a streamer.

Thankfully, the super tech-savvy folks at Digital Foundry have provided an interesting analysis that gives us a hint as to what Sony is preparing.

According to the gaming technology site, it is impossible to run PlayStation 5 games natively on a handheld console, because the PS5 uses a 200-watt system. It would be impossible to achieve that power level on a 20-watt system, even in a few years.

This means that the game would have to be scaled down to run on Sony's rumored portable console, as it does when playing the game on the Nintendo Switch's portable mode.

Or, as was the case with the PSP and Vita, an entirely new game would have to be created; prior to the Switch, even Nintendo offered separate experiences on the DS and 3DS platforms. It was commonplace for a handheld console to be different from a TV-sized console.

However, Sony withdrew from the handheld console market several years ago, and it seems unlikely that the company would be so keen to separate handheld and video games again.

Whatever Sony decides, all reports indicate that a portable PlayStation is still a long way off. That means the company has plenty of time to figure out what a PlayStation handheld should look like in order to succeed in a market dominated by platforms like Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch.