I currently spend more of my time playing games on my PlayStation Portal than I do on my actual PlayStation 5. I’m sure that wasn’t Sony’s end goal with the mighty little peripheral, but either way, the powers that be are keeping me nestled nicely inside their little ecosystem. I’ve taken the Portal to other partners’ houses, I’ve played it on the bus, I often kick back and play some Ball X Pit on the little screen whilst I’ve got Great British Menu or some other cooking show on the big TV. After my initial skepticism about the device formally known as Project Q, I must say, I am a complete convert. And I think you should be, too.

If you’ve been here before, you’ll know this isn’t the first time I’ve shared my love for this peculiar piece of plastic. In recent months, the Portal has gone from forgettable Sony curio to one of the best value propositions in the PlayStation catalogue. As of November 2025, anyone that owns the machine can use Cloud Streaming and a PlayStation Plus Premium membership to effectively bypass needing a PS5 console at all in order to play the some major first-party exclusives. I’m talking Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Ghost of Yōtei, Demon’s Souls, and so on.

Then there’s the ability to stream your entire catalogue of games from your home console to the Portal, which doesn’t need a PS Plus sub at all. It’s through this functionality that I’ve managed to eat up a decent chunk of the stylish arcade racer Screamer, usually propped up in bed eating biscuits and half-watching Dragon Ball Z on my laptop.

Once upon a time, I thought the initial outlay for the Portal was eye-watering: ponying up £200 for a machine that, at launch, only really let you stream from your PS5 if you had very, very good home WiFi and a decent upload speed seemed egregious. But now, given it’s a mighty little portable that can even act as a stand-in for an actual PS5 if you don’t mind paying for PS Plus, well, it’s a no-brainer, really.

As of 2nd April – that’s two days’ time – Sony is applying significant price increases to its PlayStation range: this means that the PlayStation Portal will go from £199.99 to £219.99. It might ‘only’ be £20, but that jump up might make more people pause and say ‘nah’ than before (there’s a lot to be said about consumer psychology – there’s a reason it’s currently £199 and not £200). Gaming is only going to get more expensive in the coming days, weeks, and months, and I think that picking up a Portal now – at the cheapest it’s going to be for a while – is a decent shout.

Given what’s happening in the world at the moment – the AI bubble, the Iran war, the memory crisis – there’s a lot of uncertainty about affordability and access to luxuries in the coming days. So I am glad I have the Portal: there is plenty in the PS Plus library to keep me entertained should I have to stick with this generation for a while to come (which is looking increasingly likely), and I absolutely will not be able to afford a replacement should my PS5 bite the dust. The Portal, then, is a great alternative – even if it isn’t the high-end gaming experience Sony would prefer I enjoy with the PS5 Pro.