In today's overkill digest newsletter I have to criticize Valve, take a look at the Miyoo Flip, and more.
Hi, hello, and welcome to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter, your go-to source for everything Dragon Age: The Veilguard handheld Gaming (and then some).
Today is my last day of vacation from my day job, and I've spent the last few nights playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard till about 3 to 4 AM. There's something about this game that right now just scratches the right itch for me. But damn, it will be hard to adopt a normal sleep rhythm again.
And before I forget: there are two more weeks left in our Steam Deck User Survey. We managed to pass last year's participants in half the time, but the more the merrier. 🗳️ So, if you haven't participated yet, please do so.
Now let's get to this week's news.
What happened this week
- You can now get a White Steam Deck. It's the OLED version, comes with 1TB of internal storage, costs $679, and it's available tomorrow (Monday, 18th). But I'm not happy about how Valve is handling this release, more below.
- Half-Life 2 is twenty years old. You can currently get the game for free until tomorrow. Here is also a two-hour-long documentary, in which Gabe Newell admitted the reason why we never got an Episode 3: he was stumped.
- New images of the Miyoo Flip appear online. Of all the emulation handheld manufacturers, Miyoo is usually known to only ever release a handheld when they can add something meaningful to the market (unlike Anbernic, who releases a new device every other week). The Miyoo Flip is a Game Boy SP-style handheld with Wi-Fi, a Linux-based OS, and two analogue sticks. There is currently no release date.
- Anbernic is teasing the RG 406H. Didn't believe me? Anbernic started teasing a new handheld, which looks very similar to the Retroid Pocket Mini. (FYI: My Retroid Pocket 5 has shipped, so I'll soon start working on my review.)
- Phil Spencer confirmed the Xbox handheld. But it will take a few years until such a device will be released. The interview also discusses future Xbox plans for acquisitions, partnerships, and mobile game stores.
- The Ryujinx domain now belongs to Nintendo. Not very surprising, Big N also owns the Yuzu domain.
- Citron is yet another Switch emulator. Maybe, Nintendo can soon own this domain, too? I'm collecting Switch emulators like Ash Ketchum collects Pokémon, and maybe one day one of these will survive longer than a month.
- Stellar Blade PC port comes to PC in 2025. The dev expects the PC release to outsell the PlayStation version. I wonder how much of that will be linked to that type of mods?
- The Mac mini is an emulation powerhouse. Russ from Retro Game Corps looked at the new base M4 Mac mini and was surprised by how well it runs emulated games. For $599 it's a banger of a deal — as long as you don't upgrade RAM nor internal storage.
- The new Nvidia app is out. Thanks to this new app, you can update your GPU drivers, configure your games, and more, all in a better design than whatever GeForce Experience offered. VG247 quite likes the new version. I've run into a few bugs, however: the tool kept recommending to run Dragon Age: The Veilguard at 4K, even though my screen maxes out at 1440p. Also, I've always wondered: are the settings the app recommends actually good?
- Warcraft I and Warcraft II Remastered are out. And you can get the whole trilogy in a package. Also, Blizzard is working on an open-world shooter, which might be set in the Starcraft universe.
... but Valve decided to release it in the worst possible way
With the release of this new, white Steam Deck, Valve is participating in a trend, that I abhor.