PlayStation Handheld May Have Exclusive Next-Gen AMD Graphics, Report Suggests

Sony may have exclusive access to AMD's next-generation graphics architecture for a potential PlayStation handheld, the tech experts at Digital Foundry have said.

There have been rumors of a next-generation PlayStation handheld for some time now, after the success of the Nintendo Switch and a wide gamut of PC gaming handhelds. Indeed, in June, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Hideaki Nishino suggested PlayStation may move towards more hybrid, Switch-like consoles in the future to match modern on-the-go players.

When I watched the latest Patreon-exclusive DF Direct, Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter claimed that "there's been some behind-the-scenes discussion that Sony has an exclusive of sorts with AMD for RDNA 5 for handheld," and that the only other, presumably handheld, chip he knows of in production at AMD is what's going to be known as Z3, which is unlikely to have RDNA 5 graphics.

AMD and Sony have been working closely for the last couple of years, teaming up on an initiative called 'Project Amethyst,' which ultimately resulted in both PSSR 2 on the PS5 Pro and FSR 4.1 for PC and Xbox.

Speaking of Xbox, it sounds like Microsoft has handheld gaming plans of its own. Project Helix will include a whole range of devices, we were recently told, and a handheld will reportedly be the first out the gate. Fortune recently reported that Microsoft plans to release a handheld by holiday 2027, with the next-gen console following in 2028. The chips going into either of these platforms hasn't been confirmed, but AMD did come out and tease that FSR Diamond would be launching with Project Helix – of which the handheld is a part of – and that would likely be running on RDNA 5.

AMD would have reason to supercharge its handheld chip offerings for a wide range of devices, as well. Intel's Panther Lake handheld chip launched at Computex 2026 and, at least in my testing, absolutely bodies the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme. The Z2 Extreme only uses an RDNA 3.5 GPU, which was already an older architecture when it launched last year. The Intel Arc G3, on the other hand, uses the same GPU that powers its latest laptops, just with a few of the CPU cores disabled.

With how expensive handhelds have become lately, the whole category is in danger of vanishing until the RAM crisis abates, and so it's possible that Sony's handheld is the only one that springs for the added cost of RDNA 5. But, unless Sony inks some kind of exclusive deal with AMD, I am sure other devices using RDNA 5 will exist eventually – maybe even Xbox's own first-party handheld.

This isn’t the first PlayStation handheld tease, either. Last year, Moore’s Law Is Dead reported on an unannounced PS6 handheld that would be dockable and backwards compatible with PS4 and PS5 games. There was also a brief mention of what was described as a PS6 S, which sounded like it could be to the PS6 what the Xbox Series S is to the Xbox Series X. If true, you’d assume it would be a cheaper option.