In today's overkill digest, we look at the new Steam Recording feature, the new Hori Steam controller, and check how 2025 might be the Year of the Handheld.
Good morning, and welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter, the go-to source for everything handheld gaming (and then some).
On Monday, we officially launched this year's Steam Deck User survey. It will run for another few weeks, so if you haven't participated there is still time!
The State of Steam Deck 2024 Survey
The third annual State of Steam Deck survey is now open. Share your thoughts on Valve’s portable gaming powerhouse.
Chris Brandrick
There’s also a giveaway for those participating! Add your email address at the end, and you can win one of five dbrand Killswitch travel kits for the Steam Deck. ,
So thanks for participating, and with that, let's get to this week's news!
What happened this week
- You can now share gameplay video directly from your Steam Deck. After a long beta, the feature is now available for all users. There are two ways to record gameplay footage: either Steam records constantly in the background and you'll always keep the last 120 minutes, or you trigger game recording manually with a keyboard/button shortcut. Chris wrote how to enable either option in this guide.
- The Xbox Handheld seems closer than ever. In a recent episode of his podcast, Jez Corden shared that "a little birdie" told him we may see "genuinely new hardware next year" in "some form for Xbox". He also further explained that "next year is a good year for revealing new hardware especially new hardware that you can hold in the palm of your hand". More thoughts on this down below.
- The Stardew Valley update 1.6 is now available for Android (and iOS). So if you run one of the countless Android-based handhelds, you can now also access new festivals, a new farm type, multiple pets, and more. Technically, the Android version available now is the latest 1.6.9 (full changelog), which is also available for PC. It also includes a hidden multiplayer mode.
- GeForce NOW capped at 100 hours per month. This new cap is coming into effect on January 1st, 2025 for members on the 'Performance' and 'Ultimate'. If you keep your sub running uninterrupted, you'll get to keep unlimited playtime for an extra year (through January 1, 2026). I'm a big fan of GeForce NOW, it mostly runs on my couch PC, but with this cap it's a touch harder to recommend.
- The Binding of Isaac Online Co-Op is coming soon. The Binding of Isaac: R,ebirth, probably the game I’ve played the most, turned ten this week, so maker Edmund McMillen announced a Steam sale, and that the co-op update is coming November 18th.
- Amazon is selling Nintendo games again. It looks like you can finally get Nintendo first-party games on Amazon US again, after being unable to buy them for pretty much the whole of 2024.
- The Nintendo Switch successor will play original Switch games. This is big news. Nintendo finally confirmed that the successor to their super-popular handheld will be backwards compatible with the Switch games catalogue. More thoughts on this down below.
- Amazon is making a Mass Effect TV show. Daniel Casey of Fast & Furious 9 fame is set to write and produce the adaptation.
- The OneXFly F1 Pro is now available for preorder. For a presale price of $1099, you'll get an AMD AI 9 HX 365 (what a stupid name), 32 GB of memory, and 1TB of internal storage, all in a handheld packing a 7" 1080p 144hz OLED panel. For $1699, you'll get the F1 Pro with an AMD AI 9 HX 370, 64 GB of memory, and 4TB of internal storage.
- AYANEO announced the AYANEO 3. The OneXFly F1 Pro isn't the only device that will ship with the AMD AI 9 HX 370 (it is still a stupid name!). AYANEO's upcoming flagship will be available in two versions, of which one has the aforementioned chip — the other one will come with an AMD Ryzen 7 8840U (slightly less stupid name). You will also have the choice between an LCD and an OLED screen, making things even more complicated. This is also the first AYANEO product with rear buttons. Looks intriguing, planning to review it.
- The Hori Steam Controller is coming to the US. Initially only available in Japan, the "Wireless Horipad for Steam" now has an Amazon listing in the US, and will cost $60. What this gets you is a random controller but with a dedicated Steam Button and a Quick Access Button. It has none of the features people came to love in the original Steam Controller from Valve, so no rumble, headphone jack or trackpads. To be fair, besides the two Steam buttons, I doubt this controller is worth that much. Maybe they should add a button for the new gameplay recording feature.
- Here is why Nintendo is suing Palworld. It's because of PokéBall patterns.
- And Nintendo is suing a streamer, too. But this guy really had it coming: not only did he stream emulated games, before they were released, but he also openly bragged about it multiple times, told Nintendo he helped other people get new versions of Yuzu and Ryujinx, and kept teasing the Big N saying that he has "a thousand burner channels" to stream from and that he "can do this all day". This must be some masochistic kink.
- Blizzard might be working on a Warcraft II Remaster. We might learn more on November 13 during the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct.
- Sega will delist 60 games from digital storefronts. Including games like Streets of Rage, Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe (all games of my childhood), and more. But if you own the games already, they won't disappear from your library.
2025 might be the Year of the Handheld
Back when the original Switch launched in 2017, a lot of reviewers were very sceptical, and it mostly came down to the Switch's launch library.