No, the PS5's Power Saver mode probably isn't setting PlayStation up for a mystery handheld… but it's still pretty impressive

All this news about a new, next-gen PlayStation handheld just won’t go away will it? We first started hearing reports about all this about a year ago, when Sony reportedly began prepping a PlayStation 5 portable, amid rumours that the company planned to battle Nintendo’s handheld dominance.

Then, back in June, plausible technical specifications for Sony’s next-gen handheld came to light via KeplerL2, kicking off some serious chatter about how realistic an idea a new PS handheld would be.

Then, in a recent firmware update, Sony added a new Power Saver mode to the PS5 – the latest actual contribution to Sony’s long-term eco-friendly initiative that we’ve seen evidence of in various PS5 models to date, with each iteration adding new ways to conserve power.

But this Power Saving mode is a bit different: it’s something supported across the whole PS5 family, and targets specific games – such as Death Stranding 2, Demon’s Souls and Days Gone Remastered – to reduce the power draw the console demands whilst playing. Social media was abuzz last week that this Power Saving mode was a suggestion that Sony is demoing something for the PS6, or related next-gen handheld, but a new video from Digital Foundry pours water on that idea.