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The Morning After: Sony whiffs another gaming handheld

Plus, Google’s Apple deal gets exposed and the importance of spell check.

Photo by Devindra Hardawar / Engadget

In the history of modern gaming handhelds, Sony was there in the fairly early days with the PSP and Vita. Both were well regarded, if flawed, living and dying long before the age of the Switch and the Steam Deck. So it would be reasonable to expect the new PlayStation Portal, which marks Sony’s return to handhelds, would be a triumph. Yeah. About that.

Portal is a $200 handheld that can only stream from your own PlayStation 5, either at home or when you’re on the go. There are no local titles, or any bells and whistles for that matter, it’s just a way to play on your own PS5 when the TV isn’t available. Devindra Hardawar has been testing one for a while and the obvious flaws remain obvious.

If your internet connection isn’t rock-solid, then the Portal isn’t very useful, especially when you can pick up a mobile handheld dock for a lot less cash. It doesn’t help that Sony’s not the best at perfectly integrating its hardware and software, so things you might expect to be seamless are anything but. Click to read Devindra’s full review, but if you’re a Sony diehard, it might be best to hide behind your hands while you do so.

— Dan Cooper

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Volvo’s EM90 ‘living room on the move’ minivan has up to 450 miles of EV range

It’s a relaxing way to sit in traffic.

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Popular AI platform introduces rewards system to encourage deepfakes of real people

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Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alan Wake 2 lead the 2023 Game Awards nominees

It reflects a blockbuster year of games.

Image from Baldur's Gate 3
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2023 has been an odd year for the gaming industry, pairing the highest highs with the lowest lows. The Game Awards’ lineup of nominees reflects the former, since this year we’ve had a stellar lineup of new releases. It speaks volumes about the quality of the year’s run that it’s hard to identify a nailed-on winner for Game of the Year.

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ASUS revealed to be total anime fan poseur via costly typo on motherboard

This is almost as bad as third impact.

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