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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Keza MacDonald

The Nintendo Switch revolutionised on-the-go gaming – can the PlayStation Portal do the same?

PlayStation Portal Remote Player - handheld gaming accessory for the PlayStation 5 by Sony
PlayStation Portal Remote Player - handheld gaming accessory for the PlayStation 5. Photograph: ole999/Alamy

Happy Monster Hunter Wilds week to all who celebrate: Capcom’s thrilling action game has sold 8m units in three days, which means that quite a lot of you are likely to be playing it. I’m a huge fan of this series and am delighted by the latest entry, but after filing the review last week, I’ve barely had a minute to play it since it came out. Regular readers will know that this is a familiar problem for me: I have two kids, so my gaming time is tight, and the living room TV is very often in use.

I anticipated this, so in the run-up to Monster Hunter Wilds’ release, I spent £200 on a PlayStation Portal – essentially a screen sandwiched between two halves of a PlayStation 5 controller. I can’t decide whether it’s one of the most unwieldy things that Sony has ever come out with, or one of the most elegant. It lets me stream games from my PS5, so the console can be whirring away under the TV and I can be on the sofa with my little screen, swinging a transforming axe at a dreadful octopus.

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