In June 2020, the night after the PS5 was revealed, I began saving money in an envelope. After a year of saving cash and fighting scalpers, I finally had one, but it didn't quite change my life the way my 23-year-old self believed it would. My gaming PC and PlayStation 5 were now in the same room as my workstation, and after an entire day of work, I just wanted to get out of there ASAP.

Needless to say, gaming soon took a backseat. To truly get back into gaming and enjoy it the way I did, things had to radically change. I knew a handheld gaming console could turn things around, but I simply couldn't compromise on quality or performance. With the gargantuan task of trying to find my will to game again, I went down the rabbit hole of handhelds, only to come out of it by fashioning my very own.

ASUS ROG ALLY — the first attempt

It’s portable, alright

Here’s what I figured — I didn’t just need to get away from my gaming PC after working on it all day long. I needed to spend more time with my partner, even if in silence as I played, and she went through the Netflix catalog like it was a curriculum. As such, I went straight to the ASUS ROG Ally in 2023. This was always going to be an experiment — I couldn't truly afford the $700 ROG Ally, but I could sure test it out before hitting the return button on Amazon.

Excited to play my favorite AAA games while in bed, I was rather disheartened when the Ally let me down with its middling performance and occasional stutters. Truth be told, most of my little free time in bed was spent tweaking the graphics settings for The Witcher 3 to get decent performance, rather than actually playing the game itself.

Then, I swiftly placed an Amazon return request before finally exploring the PS5 Portal. At the time, its whopping $400 price in my country was the reason I closed that Amazon tab as quickly as I’d opened it. Yes, I could have used the ROG Ally for PS5 Remote Play, but the screen size was a deal-breaker for me. Regardless, the idea stayed. Down the rabbit hole I went and found that I could make my own PS5 Portal for half the price.

Gamesir Galileo G8 — almost perfect

PS Portal from Wish?

I discovered that I could reap the benefits of a handheld console that streamed straight from my PlayStation 5 without actually paying 70% of the cost of the console itself. All I would need is a Gamesir Galileo G8 mobile controller, which would set me back by about $75. The caveat? It only supported screens up to 7.28 inches, and I intended to use my 10.4-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite that I hadn’t bothered to touch in a couple of years.

Deeper down the Reddit threads I went, finally coming across a guy who 3D-prints an extension kit for the G8, all for about $90. Et voilà, I could almost taste success. Of course, at the time, neither the G8 nor the extension kit was available on Amazon. As such, I had to make the purchases off Ubuy and Banggood, waiting and wondering if I’d just blown money down the drain.

Thankfully, both the purchases went smoothly, despite some hiccups at customs for the Galileo G8. Now it was time to unscrew the G8 and install the extension kit. I wasn’t confident in myself when I began, but the seller’s own installation video for the extension kit truly helped me get through the process.

This was probably the first time I found myself tinkering with hardware other than a gaming PC. Understandably, I was nervous about breaking something — and even more worried about possibly having to return something on Ubuy India. Four hours and $180 later, the extension was all set to go, and my Galaxy Tab was ready to start its second life.

PS Remote Play was just not good enough

My big screen found no utilization

The next logical step was to install Sony’s official PS Remote Play app. I expected this to be a rather simple affair, simply installing the app and playing on the Galileo for the next few hours in bliss. Sadly, the official Sony PS Remote Play app is limited to a 720p resolution, which meant that my tab’s 1200p resolution was going to be terribly underutilized.

At the time, the PS Remote Play app did not have a direct-to-stream feature, either. This app lets you stream games straight from Sony’s servers without having your own PS5. As such, I switched to the third-party PSPlay app, which has changed its name to PXPlay. An $8 subscription later, my S6 Lite is now running God of War: Ragnarok in full HD, with lossless 60fps streaming. However, having a mesh network around the house has ensured my streaming is lossless and without stutters, even four rooms over.

Reaping the rewards with my own makeshift PS Portal

There’s joy in gaming again

For around less than $175, my gaming equipment now includes a PlayStation Portal. Sure, the PS logo is nowhere to be seen on it, but boy does it work better. Not only do I get full HD streaming, but it also doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Plus, what truly matters is that I can now play through my PS library from the comfort of my bed, right next to my partner.

An interesting gameplay sequence or an emotional cut scene? She’s right there for me to show it to. Thirty minutes of It Takes Two or other amazing games I can play with my partner on the rare occasion she feels like it? We never have to step out of bed because my Galileo G8 controller can also turn on the PS5, as long as the console remains in rest mode, which it always is. What feels most significant about this is that the games I play feel much easier to put down because I'm no longer just playing alone in my den, but rather beside my partner as we both get ready to call it a day.

Why this is important as an adult gamer

In the end, this project was as much about the journey as it was about the destination. From hours of scouring Reddit threads to praying everything goes right every step of the way, the process itself brought a sense of accomplishment that rivaled the joy of gaming. This might not be the official PS Portal, but it feels uniquely mine — crafted through effort and experimentation. Sometimes, the best gaming experiences aren’t just about the games, but about the creativity and passion you bring to the table. Now, as I sit back in bed beside my partner, controller in hand, ready to play all the games I'm waiting for in 2025, I know that the effort was worth every second.