Just as the PlayStation 5 arrives in homes, this PlayStation 4 s ready to go wherever you want to take it.

Last week the PlayStation 5 went on sale, giving gamers a compelling reason to park themselves at home and enjoy the start of the newest generation of video game consoles. and. But while the PS5 might be the latest and greatest way to play games at home, there’s another piece of PlayStation hardware being built that’ll let its owner play games on the go.

It’s not being designed by Sony, though.

Over the last several months, Japanese Twitter user @DxTerraria has been building a portable PlayStation 4. @DxTerraria’s progress is of the slow-but-steady variety, since the PS4 was in no way originally designed with the intent that someone would carry it with them to enjoy gaming on the go. That means that @DxTerraria has to engineer solutions to problems no one at Sony envisioned.

For example, the PS4 is ordinarily supposed to be hooked up to your TV, so one of the first hurdles was figuring out how to give a portable version a screen. @DxTerraria settled on popping the display out of an otherwise junked laptop and repurposing it.

For more portable-oriented packaging, @DxTerraria cracked open the PS4’s casing and pulled out the essential parts needed to make the machine run, rearranging them in a more compact layout.

Lugging a bunch of exposed circuit boards around with a monitor tucked under your arm isn’t the most elegant portable experience, though, so @DxTerraria got a metallic briefcase to put everything into, which also means getting a handle for easy carrying when the case is closed.

After a little more tidying up, the system became operational!

▼ The disc orientation is a bit of nostalgia trip if you had a PS1 or top-loader PS2.

▼ System startup

And to clarify, this is a true portable system, not just a repackaged PlayStation 4 with an attached monitor. While @DxTerraria’s creation can be played plugged into a socket via an AC adapter, it can also run off of rechargeable batteries.

▼ Note the removal of the AC adapter cord part-way through the video.

The timing of @DxTerraria’s creation fills a hole in the PlayStation lineup. Between the launches of the PS2 and 3, Sony released the PlayStation Portable/PSP, a handheld with performance akin to a souped up PS1. Between the PS3 and 4, there was the PS Vita, a portable system with specs like a more powerful PS2. Sony then stopped releasing handhelds, and so while we never got an official third-gen portable PlayStation between the PS4 and 5 releases, if Sony were releasing one after the launch of the PS5, it should perform like a PS4, had the pattern were being continued.

▼ @DxTerraria’s portable PS4 can even handle online play.

@DxTerraria’s portable PlayStation 4 isn’t quite finished yet, as the creator is still working towards goals like squeezing more than an hour of playtime out of the batteries. And while it’s strictly a passion project for personal use and won’t be offered for sale, it’s still cool to know that if you really want to play your PS4 on the go, it can be done.

Source: Twitter/@DxTerraria via IT Media
Top image: Twitter/@DxTerraria
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where he still loves his PSP and Vita.