Rumor mill: Rumors and leaks have long suggested that Sony plans to release a new, non-streaming handheld device alongside the PlayStation 6. New information indicates that, despite its portable form factor, it could deliver impressive rendering, ray tracing, and upscaling capabilities thanks to advancements in AMD's core technology stack.
Prominent leaker KeplerL2 recently claimed that Sony's rumored handheld will feature a faster graphics chip than the Xbox Series S. The device, codenamed Canis, is expected to complement the PlayStation 6, which is not expected to arrive before late 2027.
The Sony handheld is said to be slightly ahead of Microsoft's entry-level console in traditional rasterized workloads and far ahead in ray tracing. That's before factoring in ML-based upscaling. If accurate, the next-gen PS handheld should be capable of running most modern games locally, avoiding the need for streaming as seen with Sony's PlayStation Portal.
The upcoming device, based on an SoC that leaked last year, would presumably support all digital PlayStation 4 titles and at least some PlayStation 5 and PS6 games, though details remain unclear. Sony could aim for full PS5 compatibility and require PS6 titles to scale down, or leave it up to developers to deliver handheld-specific optimizations.
If the system does outperform the Series S, developers who already target Microsoft's console would have a clear baseline to work from. Sony's handheld is also expected to be noticeably faster than the Nintendo Switch 2, though likely at a higher price, which could still make it attractive to third-party developers.
Upscaling may be another key advantage for Canis. Both the handheld and the PS6 are expected to support upcoming revisions of AMD FSR and Sony's FSR-based PSSR solution, which are targeting to deliver better image quality than DLSS 4.5.
According to prior reports, Canis could feature four CPU cores based on AMD's upcoming Zen 6C architecture, clocked at up to 2.2GHz, alongside 12 to 20 RDNA 5 GPU compute units, LPDDR5X-7500 memory on a 128-bit bus, and a 15W TDP.
The PS6 is expected to use a similar architecture with eight Zen 6 cores clocked up to 3GHz, 40 to 48 compute units, and a 160W TDP. RDNA 5 is also expected to significantly improve ray tracing performance and narrow the gap with Nvidia's path tracing capabilities.
Kepler also says that the Steam Deck 2 will arrive after Canis, possibly in 2028 or later, with no real detail yet on its specifications. Valve has previously indicated it is waiting for at least a 50% gain in performance per watt over the current Steam Deck before moving forward.
Sony's upcoming handheld could outperform Xbox Series S with next-gen upscaling
