Less than a week on from the release of PlayStation Portal, the handheld remote player has been surprisingly popular. Pre-orders for the device were difficult to find ahead of its launch, and stock of the Portal has been just as hard to track down now its out in the wild. If you’ve been considering caving to scalpers who have been selling them for twice the price, hold out a little longer. Stock of the Portal will be available in select regions starting this Wednesday, November 22, 2023.
The store page on the UK version of PlayStation Direct tells anyone who comes looking for a Portal to check back on November 22. No mention of when exactly the new batch of stock will go live, but the closest thing to a guarantee that more people will be able to buy their own remote player from Wednesday. The bad news is the US version of the site doesn’t have the same message, at least not yet.
PlayStation Portal
The PlayStation Portal is a handheld companion to Sony’s PlayStation 5 console. Based around the features of a DualSense controller and Remote Play, it features an eight-inch LCD screen at 1080p resolution capable of 60fps, a headphone jack for wired audio.
There is a silver lining for those of you in the US who are desperate to play PS5 games in bed without even needing to turn on the TV. In the same place as the November 22 message on the UK version of the site is a similarly-worded note asking potential customers to check back again in early December. Longer to resist the urge to pay a scalper, and a far vaguer window, but hey, we’re already more than halfway through November. Before you know it, Thanksgiving will have been and gone and there will be enough Portals for everyone.
Okay, there probably won’t be enough for everyone, especially not this side of the holidays. Much like the PS5 when it launched in 2020, every time the Portal pops up somewhere, particualrly PlayStation Direct, it’s going to sell out pretty quickly. That has been the case elsewhere including GameStop where a few of them popped up on release day. Pretty good going for a device that was largely criticzed following its reveal.
There’s other stuff to keep an eye out for if you’re keen to kit yourself out with new PlayStation hardware this holiday season, even if you don’t manage to get your hands on a Portal. The slimmer model of PS5 is out there now, and there doesn’t appear to be any issue with finding places that have the updated console in stock. PlayStation’s first ever earbuds will also be here before you know it, and pre-orders for the Pulse Elite Headset are now open.