Imagine waiting at a charging station and instead of scrolling your phone you slide a DualSense into your lap and pick up where you left off on Elden Ring. That’s the scene Sony Honda Mobility is selling with its latest feature announcement: Afeela cars will ship with PlayStation Remote Play built directly into the in-vehicle infotainment system.
The companies — Sony and Honda’s joint venture — say the Afeela 1, the brand’s first production model slated for California deliveries in 2026, will let passengers (and a parked driver) stream games from a PS5 or PS4 at home to the car’s integrated display and audio. It’s not cloud gaming; Remote Play runs the game on your console at home and sends video to the car while your inputs are carried back over the internet. That means your console needs to be powered on and accessible for the feature to work.
How it works
Sony Honda Mobility describes a straightforward experience: connect your DualSense controller that you've paired at home, sign into PS Remote Play on the Afeela’s interface, and resume a session. The company recommends at least 5 Mbps for basic functionality, with 15 Mbps suggested for smoother performance. The partnership first showed a demo at CES 2024, and now SHM is turning that demo into a production feature for the Afeela 1.
Izumi Kawanishi, SHM’s representative director, president and COO, framed the move as part of Afeela’s broader cabin vision: turning travel time into an emotional, engaging experience. It’s a neat fit for people who treat their car as an extension of the living room — or at least a place to kill some time while parked.
Limits and caveats
Streamed console gaming in a car sounds fun on paper, but the reality depends on connectivity and safety. Because Remote Play streams from your home console, lag, packet loss, or inconsistent cellular coverage will break immersion fast. SHM warns that the feature may be unavailable depending on network conditions. Also, the company hasn’t fully detailed whether the interface will block gameplay while the vehicle is in motion, but the expectation is that play is intended for parked use only.
There are practical questions that both buyers and early adopters will watch for: how sign-in and controller pairing are handled, whether wired controllers are supported, and if any carrier data plans or in-car data caps affect the experience. If you don’t already have a PS5 or PS4, the announcement nudges some readers toward console choices — including the higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro for those who want the latest hardware and performance.
This isn’t unique territory. Tesla once offered Steam onboard before removing it, and other automakers and platform holders are exploring cloud-based gaming inside cars — Microsoft has pitched Xbox Cloud Gaming on compatible infotainment stacks, and Sony’s own PlayStation Portal recently gained cloud streaming updates that show different ways companies are approaching games in transit PlayStation Portal can now stream your PS5 library. The difference with Afeela’s approach is the tether to a physical console at home rather than a subscription cloud stream.
Afeela’s PS Remote Play addition fits into a larger trend of cars becoming multi‑purpose screens. Infotainment systems now juggle navigation, media, communications and, increasingly, AI features that go beyond maps — think conversational assistants that can guide routes or suggest stops — which echoes other advances like AI copilots in mapping platforms Google Maps gets Gemini AI copilot.
For now, treat Afeela’s Remote Play as a clever convenience: great for long waits, airport pickups, or keeping kids occupied on a road trip, but dependent on your home console and mobile network. When Afeela 1 hits early customers in 2026, the real test will be whether streaming from couch to car feels reliable enough to become a routine part of how people use their vehicle cabins — or just a neat party trick at chargers and parking lots.