Highlights
- The PlayStation Portal has already sold out in many places around the world, showing strong demand and potential for commercial success.
- The pre-order period for the handheld console started in late September and quickly sold out, including in Japan and on Amazon in the U.S.
- The limited pre-order volume makes it difficult to gauge exact sales figures, but the potential customer pool is large, suggesting the handheld could hit a million sales soon after its release.
The PlayStation Portal is already sold out in many places around the world weeks ahead of its planned release. This promising start to its pre-order period indicates that the biggest drawback to PlayStation's first handheld in over a decade—its inability to operate as a standalone console—might not stand in the way of it becoming a commercial success.
First unveiled in late May as Project Q, the PlayStation Portal finally received its official name and price tag three months later. But the gap between those milestones was nothing compared to the $199.99 handheld's overall development cycle, which some recently surfaced evidence pegged as starting no later than 2015. Eight years later, Sony opened pre-orders for the device on September 29.
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The PlayStation Portal subsequently took less than a day to sell out across all online retailers in Japan. And while a strong start to its pre-orders in Sony's home country might not come as a particular surprise, the handheld is also already listed as out of stock on the U.S. version of Amazon. Meanwhile, the stateside PlayStation Direct storefront has limited orders to one device per player, citing high demand. After initially opening advanced orders in late September, Best Buy now lists the PlayStation Portal as "coming soon," while GameStop is only accepting early purchases from its Pro subscribers, having already bestowed the "bestseller" label upon the PS5 accessory.
Sony never revealed the maximum pre-order volume that it intends to fulfill ahead of the gizmo's debut, making it impossible to accurately assess just how well the PlayStation Portal is already selling during this pre-release period. Its closest comparison point is the PS VR2, whose early demand never exceeded its planned supply in the run-up to its February 2023 launch. Nevertheless, the VR accessory for the PS5 still sold 600,000 units in its first three months on the market, with Sony confirming as much back in May.
Based on that limited context, and assuming the PlayStation Portal didn't have a smaller pre-order volume than the PS VR2, it's possible that the upcoming handheld hits a million sales not long after its release. Its potential customer pool is approximately 40 million strong, which is how many PS5 consoles Sony sold as of July.
It remains to be seen whether any of the retailers who are no longer accepting advanced orders for the handheld open another wave of pre-orders ahead of its mid-November launch. That notwithstanding, this early market performance indicates that the PlayStation Portal's promise of a portable PS5 screen with long battery life has already enticed many gamers to open their wallets, even if the device itself doesn't rival standalone handhelds like the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck.
PlayStation Portal releases November 15.
