Sony may have secured an exclusivity arrangement involving AMD’s RDNA 5 graphics architecture for its rumoured PlayStation handheld, according to Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter. The reported arrangement could give the portable device an advantage over competing handheld gaming systems, although Sony has yet to officially announce the hardware.
During a recent Patreon-exclusive episode of Digital Foundry Direct (via Reddit), the team discussed Microsoft’s reported hardware plans and speculation surrounding the next generation of consoles. Speaking about the rumoured PlayStation handheld, Leadbetter said: “There has been some behind the scene discussions that Sony has an exclusive of sorts on RDNA5 for handheld with it’s mobile device that’s coming”.
The possibility has also been discussed by hardware insiders, including KeplerL2. AMD may be less willing to allocate engineering resources to semi-custom chips for lower-volume products. If manufacturers cannot commit to sufficient orders, developing bespoke silicon for their devices could become less attractive.
Under that scenario, Sony’s rumoured handheld could be the only portable gaming system to use a dedicated custom chip based on RDNA 5. Other devices, potentially including a future Steam Deck or Xbox handheld, might instead use different graphics architectures or existing chip designs.
Previous reports have suggested that Sony’s next handheld could use a six-core CPU featuring four Zen 6 cores and two Zen 6 Low Power cores. An official Linux kernel patch has reportedly lent credibility to those earlier hardware claims, although it does not confirm the full specification of the rumoured device.
