A PlayStation handheld capable of running PS4 titles natively? For Digital Foundry it’s not that simple

The arrival of a new portable console from Sony Interactive Entertainment has been rumored for some time and in the last month there has been talk of a handheld capable of running PlayStation 4 games natively.
The news published by Russian journalist Anton Logvinov quickly went around the web, sparking discussions and giving free rein to the dreams and hopes of the players. The guys from Digital Foundry also spoke on the topic and, responding to a fan during a podcast, have raised some doubts about the feasibility of this project, raising concerns about the necessary power and autonomy of a device with these characteristics. Here are the details.

PS4 games in a handheld? Difficult for Digital Foundry

According to the words of Digital Foundry, a handheld device capable of natively running PS4 games with the same level of detail would be very difficult to create, starting from technical limits imposed by the necessary bandwidthequal to 176 GB/s, and al rapid battery drain which he would encounter.

Furthermore, the problems would also involve the choice of CPU: a portable system of this type would have to rely on a Jaguar processor to ensure maximum compatibility with all titles, but at the moment there is no such chip in the mobile segment.
A console or handheld with these characteristics should therefore turn to the AMD platform, a factor that would require porting of the titles and would therefore limit the library. However, a device with an AMD CPU would also be able to run PS5 games, albeit with the details appropriately revised downwards,

Real hypothesis?

For Digital Foundry, a PlayStation console or handheld would still be a good idea, given the excellent results obtained from PlayStation Portal.
As we mentioned, Sony is already developing a PlayStation portable console, probably based on custom AMD APU. At the moment the device would be in the design phase, very far from the final launch. Spec speculation points to the presence of 18 CUs and a 1.8GHz GPU with variable clock, along the lines of the PS5.
As always, we will keep you updated on all the latest news.