Astro's Playroom, Spider-Man 2 among PlayStation Portal's most-played launch games

The PlayStation Portal is getting a lot of usage from players, according to Sony. In its newest PlayStation Blog, the developer revealed some interesting statistics for its not-quite-handheld.

From mid-November 2023 to early February, its most played games included PS exclusives Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Astro's Playroom, and God of War Ragnarok. On the multiplatform (and multiplayer) end were EA Sports FC 24 and Fortnite.

Sony didn't give hard numbers but highlighted how much easier the Portal (or PSP) makes accessing games. Average Portal engagement shot up within the first two months of players using it.

Remote play has been a good feature for PlayStation since it was introduced with the PlayStation 4. With the Portal, over 60 percent of players started using the feature for the first time.

What makes all this worth knowing is that it adds an interesting wrinkle to the handheld scene. While the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck let players play games right from the system, handhelds like the ROG Ally play games via cloud streaming.

The PlayStation Portal offers something of a middle ground: players can only play PlayStation 5 games already installed on the console. It offers a traditional handheld experience while also being Cloud-adjacent.

While it's somewhat restrictive in terms of what it can do, the Portal stands out among those other handhelds and Microsoft's potential Xbox one, which may lean toward the Nintendo and Valve end of handhelds.

If Sony's information is to be believed, the Portal is more than doing its job in giving players a new way to play their games and keep them further engaged in the PlayStation ecosystem.