Sony is reportedly in the early stages of developing a brand new PlayStation handheld intended to challenge Nintendo's current dominance of the market.
According to a Bloomberg report, which cites the usual "people familiar with its development", Sony is looking to both take on Nintendo's hugely popular Switch and to head off competition from a potential Xbox handheld as well.
Much like said Xbox handheld, however, the PlayStation device is likely many years away from release, and Bloomberg's reporters say that Sony "could still decide against bringing it to market", so we're very much still in the early stages of development.
According to the Bloomberg report, the PlayStation handheld would be designed to play PS5 games on the move, although it's unclear exactly how the device would work in this regard.
It's likely, however, that the handheld - if, indeed, it ever comes to market - won't predominantly use cloud streaming, because that would put it in direct competition with the PlayStation Portal, a handheld device designed to play PS5 games when linked to a console or via the cloud.
Bloomberg says that the Portal was originally intended to function as a standalone device, much like Valve's Steam Deck. Presumably, however, that scope got cut down during the device's development.
As it stands, the PlayStation Portal is capable of streaming PS5 games, but it doesn't have any native capability to play them. It's likely the new PlayStation handheld would feature hardware capable of playing PS5 games natively, although it's very unlikely it would support physical media.
News that Sony and Microsoft might be considering bringing new handhelds to market comes as anticipation for a new Nintendo Switch console mounts.
Nintendo has promised to share news regarding the Switch's successor sometime before April next year, but the company hasn't specified exactly when we can expect the device to arrive.
