Despite the vague name, Sony's Project Q is much more than just a concept or rumor at this point. The company has
already announced its existence—if not much more than that—and we know it's on the way. It's a streaming handheld, intended to use in-home streaming to play PlayStation 5 games from anywhere in your home without taking up the family TV.
We've seen renders of the system before, but now we have some photos and a short video of what appears to be an early sample of the hardware. It appears to be exactly what we thought it would be: a low-end 8" Android tablet with the two halves of a
PlayStation 5 DualSense controller stapled onto the sides.
In
the 28-second video leaked by Zuby Tech on Twitter—sorry,
we mean "X", we suppose—you can see someone manhandle the machine a bit and fiddle with the on-screen interface. It doesn't look production-ready; there's barely a hint of a Sony front-end or PlayStation interface, and there's Chinese text everywhere, likely from the manufacturer.
We can also see someone—possibly the leaker, possibly not—scrolling through Android apps using
the PlayStation controls on the device. When the person in the video turns the system over, we see what at first glance appears to possibly be an SD card slot, but in fact looks like it's probably actually just a speaker cutout. There are several controls on the top, with what looks like three or four buttons, and possibly a volume rocker.
Sony has already made it clear that this device doesn't work without a PlayStation 5. This isn't a stand-alone handheld like the PlayStation Vita or PSP. It's
exclusively for streaming games from your larger Sony game console. We can see some merit in it; playing comfy games while cuddled up in bed has its appeal. We'd probably prefer a Steam Deck for that, though.