Would you purchase a portable PS4 / XBox One if it was 100% compatible with the existing library?
He doesn't want one. A portable BRD player is redundant as you can stream movies on whatever mobile devices. 
For those who vote "up to $400", what's the maximum you'd pay? Are you all happy with a $400 device, or would you pay less than that, say $250 or $300, but not as much as $400? The response seems a little broad and would need to include those wanting a portable but not wanting to spend as much as that.
For those who vote "up to $400", what's the maximum you'd pay? Are you all happy with a $400 device, or would you pay less than that, say $250 or $300, but not as much as $400? The response seems a little broad and would need to include those wanting a portable but not wanting to spend as much as that.
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He doesn't want one. A portable BRD player is redundant as you can stream movies on whatever mobile devices.
Apart from Switch because..........
Your phone and tablet already have you covered?
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Deleted member 11852
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My phone is a bit small and my iPad doesn't go with me nearly as much as my Switch. It's the old problem of carrying a bunch of devices. If I'm away for a couple of days, it'll be the iPad, if I'm away for a week or more I'll want my Switch. Ideally I don't want to take both + chargers.
First world problems are a bitch.
If the Switch had a better screen and software, or if the iPad had better games it could entirely be your single device, which is maybe what a portable system by Sony/Microsoft could be.
As for chargers, if Apple wasn't greedy and extracting the most money out of consumers, they could just use USB-C connectors.
As for chargers, if Apple wasn't greedy and extracting the most money out of consumers, they could just use USB-C connectors.
A single device needs phone connectivity. I think you'd need to have a phone with some additional controllers (see XBox patents) for a single device. But then you're running Android as your game console OS which I'm sure the console companies don't want, or even WindowsX something-or-other that no-one wants on their phone. Dual boot? Switch out of Android and into GameOS? Have them with their own RAM pools and swap between functionality? It's starting to get complicated.
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For the Switch I have a tiny adaptor that replicates the dock's HDMI output. Except when actually travelling (planes, trains etc), I mostly plug my Switch into the hotel TV.
Don't get me started. Folks, rightly, rib Sony about their bonkers propriety disc/card formats but since PS2, the PlayStation has accepted standard 3.5" and 2.5" HDDs and PS3 SixAxis and DualShock 3, PS4 controllers are all standard Bluetooth. That said, the most recent 2018 iPad Pro has standard USB-C and can use most USB-C devices that support standard USB-C device profiles including HDDs, solid state storage, cameras and so on. So maybe there is hope for future non-"Pro" iDevices. But not while Apple are making any appreciable profit off connectors, adaptors and cables. For a good long while, I could not charge my Apple iPhone from my Apple 12" MacBook without an adaptor because Apple did not produce a USB-C to Lightning cable, preferring me to buy a USB-C-to-USB-A adaptor.
Fortunately, retail Apple Stores in the UK seemingly have a wide degree of latitude in what they'll throw in gratis when you are buying an expensive product with connectivity issues. When I bought my the second gen (non-overheating) 13" MacBook Air, they threw in a USB DVD Drive. When I bought my 12" MacBook they threw in a free USB-C-to-USB-A adaptor. High-profit profit, but low-loss-if-free decisions couples next to high-profit purchases. The custom leaves happy, but they have still been fleeced.
Sorry, this turned into an Apple rant. They definitely do this crap deliberately.
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Deleted member 13524
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How would "up to $400" mean anything but willing to spend up to $400?
The intention in the poll was to figure out the general threshold that people would be willing to pay for. That threshold on "up to $400" is on the $400 mark and not a dollar lower.
I know some users said they would only go up to $300, but I really don't think that as economically viable, with $400 already being a bit unlikely considering it had to use a rather exotic memory subsystem.
Maybe next year we could make a new poll for a mobile PS4 launching in 2021/22, using 5nm for example.
Regardless, at the moment we have:
- 31 votes
- 14 of which don't care about mobile gaming
- Out of the 17 who do care:
3 own a Switch
4 are content with tablet games
9 would be willing to spend $400 on a portable PS4 / X360.
So in the universe of people who care for mobile gaming, there are 3 times more people wanting a portable Gen9 for $400 than there are people who already own a Switch, and 2.25 times more than the ones who are fine with tablet games.
I will be buying another phone to play Xbox games via Project xCloud in the next 6 months. I usually never spend more than $150 on a phone. And since I'm on Cricket Prepaid I'm always a couple of generations behind everybody else. None of the poll options fit my situation so I didn't respond.
Tommy McClain
Tommy McClain
What about people who want a portable but aren't willing to spend that much - which response are they supposed ot vote for?
In terms of viability, I think it needs to be read as 30% of core gamers, those represented by B3D, would be interested in a portable. If that core console audience is 160 million, that'd be 48 million units which is viable. Although factoring in per platform, where XB owners may not be interested in a portable PS and vice versa because it doesn't play their library, you're looking at maybe 30 million units (for a portable PS). You also make the case that this device plays the existing library, meaning no rebuying content, which reduces the interest in creating a portable. Sony would stand to make (30 million x profit margin) from hardware sales and then rather limited additional software sales. How expensive and how large would the profit margin need to be on launch hardware? Would that in turn discourage fast adoption, which in turn which present a weak showing and discourage future sales as gamers fear a DOA platform?
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Deleted member 13524
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IMO they must choose they're happy with current offerings, because a sub-$300 handheld that is 100% compatible with the PS4 / X360 isn't going to happen anytime soon.
I disagree.
B3D are hardware enthusiasts, not gaming enthusiasts. If you want core gamers you don't want to head out to a forum that caters to people concerned with how many TFLOPs there will be in the next-gens, whether the PS5's SSD will use a standard M.2 NVMe connector with PCIe 4.0 compatibility or it'll be soldered and how high the CPU cores will be clocked at.
You'll find core gamers are at IGN or GameFAQ forums, for example, most of which would run away from most of the discussions held here.
If anything, presenting that question here should be unfavorable compared to forums dedicated to videogames first and foremost.
Why is the core audience 160 million and why is it only 30% of that?
Out of 13 answers of people who own consoles, 9 said they'd be interested in their respective portable gen9. That's ~70% of the people who own PS4/XBone which at the moment is close to 150 million.
So 105 million, out of which ~70 million are PS4 owners and 35 million are XBone owners.
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A rough approximation of console market size factoring in generational sales each generation. It might be a bit more than that.
"I'm not interested in mobile gaming" includes console owners. There's no separate option for 'I'm a console gamer and I don't care for mobile gaming," and I'm assuming everyone responding to this poll is a console owner. So out of all respondents, 30% care for a portable. Maybe a little more if there are a few non-console owners voting for the last option.
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Deleted member 13524
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That's impossible.. there are 4 choices in the poll dedicated to people who don't own any console and one of them even has a vote.
Fair enough, but as I say, "maybe a little more if there are a few non-console owners voting for the last option." Point being you can't assume everyone in the "don't care for mobile gaming" is a non-console owner as for console owners who don't care for a portable, this is the only option for them. That places the number of console owners who don't care for mobile gaming at somewhere between zero and 47% of respondents, with it likely being in the upper bound. Your 70% estimate is ridunkulously optimistic.
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Deleted member 13524
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Console owners who don't care for a portable are happy with the current offers, since it doesn't matter to them whatever comes up in stores. There's an option for that.
Or they can just say they don't care for mobile gaming (which is also true if they don't care for gaming at all).
Why?!
Would you grade the ridunkulousness level any lower than your ridunkulously pessimistic 30% estimate?
If they like mobile gaming, yes, that'll be registered. If they don't like that, they have to vote for...
Precisely, which is why you can't ignore those cotes when calculating your estimates. You're taking the number of console owners as 13, with 9 wanting a handheld. The number of console owners is more than that - we just don't know how much more, but you should recognise the names of several consoles in the names.
Because it's a console gaming forum populated by a large proportion of console gamers.
My 30% comes from the actual data though without ignoring 50% of the respondents. We don't know how many of 15 final-option votes are console owners, but what's the logic in assuming the vast majority of them are not console owners?
I'm also not sure comparing to console userbase is that useful. It's hard to gauge Sony's other platforms for comparison as they overlapped generations. Did PSP sell to 50% of PS2 owners, or 100% of PS3 owners? That's why it'd be better in my mind to see whether gaming habits have changed and if the audience for a high-end handheld has dried up. It's a shame my sister-poll isn't getting more activity. Not enough people have voted to really indicate anything. As it is though, 50% of prior PS handheld owners don't care for a new device. That'd extrapolate to 40 million tops, 50% of PSP's 80 million. 40 million would also be 40% of PS5's current install base. I think that's a pretty realistic best-case for a new handheld using my 'back of a napkin that I ate and it's in my gut' instinct, although maybe we'll see a large influx of pro-new-handheld voting from PSP owners to prove me wrong?
Although going back to the original argument for a new handheld, I still stand that where I cannot prove there's no viable market, it's still very uncertain that there is a healthy market out there, which justifies Sony's decision not to release a new handheld.
Edit: I'll add that at least these poll results don't support the argument that portable gamers have moved on to mobile gaming en masse. Presently that stands at 4 out of 13, or 30%. I suppose following through from that figure, if PSP represents the largest audience a portable PS could sell to, a future PS would have an potential audience of 0.7 x 80M, around 56 million.
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