Sony Is Forcing 'Low Power Mode' On Devs To Prep For A PS6 Handheld

Rumor Mill
Written By NLM Team

The PlayStation Portal was just the appetizer. It looks like Sony is finally cooking the main course.

If you thought the recent PS5 "Power Saver" updates were just about saving the polar bears, you are naive. According to a new leak from Moore’s Law Is Dead (MLID), Sony is aggressively pushing developers to support a "Low-Power Mode," and it has absolutely nothing to do with your electric bill.

It is a Trojan Horse to get the library ready for a PS6 Handheld.

The "Trojan Horse" Strategy

In a new video, MLID shared details from developers who claim they received emails from Sony this week. The tone of these emails wasn't a polite suggestion. It was a push.

Sony provided specific tutorials and instructions on how to implement this mode. But the kicker is the specific requirement they are asking for. They don't want developers to just cap the framerate at 30FPS to save power.

They want developers to maintain 60FPS by lowering the internal resolution.

This is the smoking gun. If this was just about saving power on a wall-plugged console, nobody would care if the framerate dropped. But for a handheld device with a smaller screen? You can get away with 1080p (or lower) resolution, but you absolutely need that high framerate for it to feel good.

The Razor CPU Mandate

The leak gets deeper into the technical weeds. Sony is reportedly pointing developers toward a tool called Razor CPU.

This is a utility designed to find CPU bottlenecks. The emails explicitly ask studios to look for ways to "reduce how many threads are used" by their games.

This is crucial because a handheld device (even a powerful one) will never have the CPU grunt of a massive home console. By forcing devs to optimize their thread usage now, Sony is ensuring that Death Stranding 2 or GTA 6 won't melt the battery of a portable device in 20 minutes.

Sony Is "Annoyed"

The funniest part of the leak is the mood. The source claims Sony seemed "a bit annoyed" that so few developers are supporting the mode directly.

It makes sense. Why would a developer spend time optimizing a "Low Power Mode" for a console that is plugged into the wall? It feels like busywork. But for Sony, this is the foundation of their next generation. They want a launch library for the PS6 Handheld that "just works" on day one.

If this report holds up, the PS6 era is going to be hybrid. And honestly, after seeing how good the Steam Deck is, I am ready to take my platinum trophies on the bus.

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NLM Team
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