The PlayStation 5 SDK is getting updated in the near future with a new low energy mode which strongly hints at a handheld system.
According to Moore’s Law is Dead, Sony is briefing developers and sending out documentation on a new low energy mode for the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro, which is getting added soon to the system’s SDK. This new mode is a third flag, or performance profile, besides the base mode and Trinity mode for the PlayStation 5 Pro which indicate which system is supported by a game, and comes with plenty of limitations: it limits the system to eight threads, reduces 3D Audio processing to 75%, reduces the GPU core clocks by around 10%, 20%, essentially forcing them to the minimum clock speeds required to run a game, and GDDR6 memory bandwidth by half, limits the systems to 36 compute units, and removes PSSR and VR support. All of these limitations reduce power consumption by around 20% and 30% while keeping 90% of the console’s capabilities without breaking backward compatibility. Interestingly enough, the documentation provided to developers encourages them to have proper VRR support.
While a reduction of the PlayStation 5 power consumption would be welcome in a variety of situations, this likely isn’t the primary goal of this new low energy mode, according to Moore’s Law is Dead. The introduction of this new flag is probably the beginning of handheld support, and framing it like this would be a means to prevent leaks. Known AMD leaker Kepler L2 also believes this new energy-saving mode is an emulated performance profile for a handheld system, since the biggest weakness of that APU is memory bandwidth, which is one of the things the new performance profile addresses.
Oh this is 100% an emulated performance profile for the Handheld, since the biggest weakness of that APU is memory bandwidth and this profile is reducing PS5 bandwidth in half as you said.
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) June 6, 2025
As of now, this new PlayStation 5 low energy mode is not mandatory for developers, but the fact that it is being added soon suggests that something is indeed cooking up at Sony. Trinity Mode, for example, was added roughly one year before the PS5 Pro launched and made mandatory a few months later, so its addition suggests that the device related to this performance profile could be coming relatively soon. It has been rumored for a while that the home PlayStation 6 will launch together with a handheld device, and with the next-generation system getting closer to release, it makes sense to start planning support soon.
