Can You Play On PS5 And Portal At The Same Time?

The primary purpose of the PlayStation Portal is to serve as a remote player for your PlayStation 5 console. In other words, if you want to play PS5 games but either can't or don't want to sit in front of your living room TV, the Portal allows you to stream game content directly from the console anywhere within your home wireless range. This is nice if you're the only one in your home who wants to play PS5 games, but if you're not, it presents a bit of a problem.

If someone else in your home wants to play a PS5 game while you're elsewhere using the Portal, they won't be able to access the console, as it's engaged in running and mirroring your current game to your Portal. It's basically like picking up the PS5 and dragging it somewhere else in your home, which is naturally frustrating for anyone else who wants a turn. If you were hoping to play two different games on the PS5 and its companion Portal, there's a bit of good news and bad news about that. The good news is that such a thing is technically possible. The bad news is that facilitating this would require you to jump through a few hoops, as well as potentially limit what you can do with both the PS5 and the Portal.

When you use your Portal for Remote Play, the device mirrors gameplay from the companion PS5 and streams it to you over your home Wi-Fi connection. Both devices are registered to your personal PlayStation Network account, which means that, even if both devices could operate independently, you couldn't have two instances of the same account running games at the same time. There is, however, a loophole to this: disconnecting your PS5 from the internet.

According to Reddit users, if your PS5 isn't connected to the internet, it can't ping PlayStation's servers and tattle on you for trying to run multiple games. This can be facilitated by enabling the Console Sharing and Offline Play feature in your PS5's settings. Not being connected to the internet does limit your PS5's functionality somewhat; you won't be able to play any online games, access cloud saves, or download updates or new game software. If you've got games saved to your PS5's local storage or physical game discs, though, you should be able to play those.

Of course, if your PS5 isn't connected to the internet, it can't communicate with your Portal either, so you can't access your games with it. There's no solution to this with the Portal's base functions, but there is a feature currently in beta you can try: Cloud Game Streaming. If you have a PlayStation Plus Premium membership and opt into the beta from your Portal's settings, you can stream games from the cloud directly to the device, independent of your PS5. Just remember that your game quality and performance will be heavily dependent on how strong your home Wi-Fi is.