Sony Project Q: Specs, performance & price speculation

Sony’s Project Q is a brand-new handheld rumored to launch in late 2023. We list everything you need to know about the console, including speculation on price, specifications, release date, and more.

The Sony Project Q handheld is real. Confirmed at the State of Play held in May 2023, the company confirmed that the company is once again entering the handheld market. Handheld gaming consoles are hotting up with more launches than ever before. Some of the portable gaming PCs include the Asus ROG Ally, Ayaneo 2S, and more. Meanwhile, cloud devices like the Logitech G Cloud and Razer Edge have begun to also appeal to cloud-focused gamers, and Sony is cooking up a device of their own, the Sony Project Q.

The device “enables you to stream any game from your PS5 console using remote play over WiFi”. The device will also retain all of the features of the Dualsense, such as haptics and more.

The official announcement comes following substantial leaks about how the handheld would be positioned, according to Insider Gaming. The device was also previously known as the Q-Lite.

The leask states that the device might only work as a DualSense controller with a large display, with the ability to stream games from the PlayStation 5 using Remote Play. There is no word regarding if Project Q will let users play games independently of the PS5.

With an official announcement finally here, we dive deep into speculation about how much the device could cost, its specifications, and more.

Sony Project Q price speculation

Current reports state that the Sony Project Q could retail for around $200. This is sourced from Tom Henderson’s appearance on the Iron Lord podcast.

Looking at the competition, the Logitech G-Cloud is expensive, sitting at $349.99. For a handheld whose entire goal is to be a cloud-based device, with no hardware onboard to support it, we’d hope Sony looks at the Abxylute for inspiration.

Abxylute is currently retailing the console at $229 when it launches – it’s cheaper on Kickstarter – and we’d say the $200 mark would be the sweet spot for Project Q. Any more expensive and you wind up with slight confusion about its capabilities.

Sony Project Q release date speculation

PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan clarified that Project Q would be launched this year. However, leaker Tom Henderson claims that it could land in “mid-late November 2023” according to his latest tweets.

Previously, Henderson claimed that the gaming console might be released around November 2023 on the Iron Lord podcast.

The current idea is that Sony wants to launch this alongside the rumored PlayStation 5 Slim so that they have a healthy refresh of products before the inevitable launch of the PS5 Pro. We’ll just have to wait and see for those announcements, as it is currently only rumor.

Sony Project Q specifications predictions

Sony

It’s assumed that the Sony Project Q will be more in line with lower-end cloud handhelds. We saw several releases, like the Logitech G-Cloud and Abxylute’s Cloud Gaming Console. These devices come with ultra-low powered system-on-chips (SoC), which are meant to drive a video feed rather than any local games.

The only cloud console released so far with any capabilities for local gaming is the Razer Edge, which is an outlier in the group.

Processor

While we don’t expect Sony to skimp on costs, we’re expecting something closer in power levels to the Logitech G-Cloud, than the Razer Edge. Considering that the modest Abxylute is able to dish out 1080p, 60FPS over cloud gaming, it might not be a bad idea.

The Abxylute runs an MT8365 processor, which was released back in 2021. It can support DDR4 RAM, as well as eMMC storage. While we suspect the Project Q will have around 4GB of RAM, we do expect that Sony will attempt to one-up its Japanese competitor with stronger hardware.

In our testing of the Logitech and Abxylute devices, we found that their implementation of Android was the biggest criticism. When browsing Android on such low-end specs, it can sometimes begin to lag or stutter, however, all this is killed off as soon as you load into an application.

Logitech fitted its handheld with a Snapdragon 720G, which is technically superior to the Abxylute handheld but is still a few years old. However, at the end of the day, the SoC won’t matter all that much due to the intentions of the design of the device itself.

Screen

Sony has confirmed that the Project Q handheld will have a 1080p, 60Hz, 8-inch screen. This correlates with reports from Insider Gaming. The display technology is rumored to be a normal LCD with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

As long as the chip onboard can support a high-speed Wi-Fi connection – preferably Wi-Fi 6E – and bring in a high-quality image, it’ll have succeeded in doing its job.

Wi-Fi

Sony has confirmed that Project Q will run on WiFI. We expect that the Sony Project Q will use Wi-Fi 6E in order to maintain the best wireless standard out right now. It makes no sense for Sony to not support the new standard, as lower-end Internet connections could make the experience of using the device pretty miserable.

However, with the PS5 supporting Wi-Fi 6 internally, we’d take a guess that Sony will be fitting the Project Q with the same technology.

Will the Sony Project Q support other streaming services?

The Sony Project Q won’t support other streaming services out of the box, according to Insider Gaming. We have yet to learn what operating system Project Q will be supporting. Presumptions would lead us to believe it’s Android-based – Sony’s mobile and TV brands use it – but it could wind up using a fork of the PS5’s OS instead, or something entirely new.

The PS5 currently runs a heavily customized version of FreeBSD, a spin on the original Unix operating systems. According to some open-source crediting, it’s presently running FreeBSD 11. The PS3 and PS4 also ran it, bringing to prominence the XMB interface.

If Sony decides to load Project Q up with a version of FreeBSD, it could slow down homebewers looking to crack it open for use with other platforms.

However, if there’s a web browser included with Project Q, this could be an opportunity for Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now to worm their way onto the system.

Will the Sony Project Q be a Vita 2?

No, as far as we know the Sony Project Q will be a cloud handheld rather than a dedicated handheld like the Vita.

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