The rumored portable iteration of the unannounced PS6 will be able to run PS5 games without requiring a patch from developers.
Known hardware insider KeplerL2 took to the NeoGAF forums to share further details regarding the rumored portable iteration of the next-gen PlayStation console. They were asked by a fellow forum member about current-gen PS5 games need patches in order to run on the portable PS6. In response, they clarified that, as far as they’re aware, the handheld has shader binary compatibility, which should allow PS5 titles to run on it.
However, the insider added that performance of PS5 games may not be great on the portable PS6 without updates from developers. The situation doesn’t appear to be too different from that of the PS5 Pro being capable of running PS5 games without the need for patches. Much like Sony Interactive Entertainment’s mid-gen console, however, should a developer decide to update their game with support for the portable PS6, it should yield greater performance.
Previously, the same insider had claimed that the portable PS6’s SoC is entirely different from that of the console PS6, and that it is specifically designed to run at very low voltages. Additionally, they had mentioned that its GPU will contain “a lot less than” 40 Compute Units. When asked by a fellow NeoGAF member whether the portable PS6 is more powerful than the PS4 Pro, but weaker than the PS5, the insider had stated that this would be hard to estimate at the time, as it’s based on an unreleased GPU. They further said that the handheld’s performance falls somewhere between the Xbox Series S and the PS5.
As for whether the rumored PlayStation handheld will follow the same launch schedule as the console iteration of the PS6, the insider shared that the former’s SoC tapes out a few months after the latter’s SoC.
