This is interesting, looks like Japan is getting a famicom mini with different games:

https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/14/japan-nes-classic-manga-edition/

“and now the ability to stream games that are not on Linux over WiFi”

What do you mean there? I’ve streamed plenty of non-Linux games over WiFi for years on the Link and in-home streaming before that.

But yeah this is solid news. Though I doubt they’d make it easier to play games on the handheld devices you already have if they plan on making a handheld themselves any time soon.

But as much as they’ve pushed the Link in sales (I bought a couple for five bucks a pop) and now this, they definitely want to make sure you can access your games easily. If they implement a way that you can play them over the Internet (like PS Now) and you aren’t tied down to your home network, you can play them anywhere.

I definitely look forward to trying this on my AppleTV. That device is getting more and more useful. I already can’t imagine TV without it.

Ah I see what you meant. The “now” was throwing me off.

They seem to indicate that you can. Maybe the Steam Controller hardware can do MFI with a firmware update?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/353370/announcements/detail/2503317299191608387

Here we go then

Hmm. Given that it will work on the AppleTV, I will give it a try. If Bluetooth mode hasn’t made it out of beta for the steam controller, I wonder if my existing appletv game controller will work.

Dammit Jon, you made me look up MFI.

Hmm... with a company like Valve I’m hoping they can make some progress here. Surely someone high up the flagpole at Apple would talk to Gabe about it and figure out exactly what’s going on.

I would love to know what business process they’re referring to. It should just be treated like a Remote Desktop app.

Maybe they think it will eat into game sales on the App Store?

It's hard to find any concrete info about this specific case but a theory is that the issue could have been that Apple doesn't allow any apps to be used to purchase digital content. Thus, you can't use the Amazon app to buy Kindle books, etc.

But according to some sources, Valve disabled the ability to buy games when using Steam Link on iOS and resubmitted it so maybe something will come of that?

Ok here’s a more concrete source on that:

https://www.engadget.com/amp/2018/05/26/apple-works-with-valve-on-steam-link-ios/

Another steam link sale. $2.50 right now + $7.99 for shipping. I ended up just ordering one instead of waiting for the ios app.

Sweet now I can get incredibly frustrated by RNG on Steam too!

I jest, it’s a solid game. Back in the day it was this and Tuxracer if you were on Linux.

I know I was in some Wesnoth events yeah. And I think a weird open source game in the quake 3 engine that had you playing as toys in someone's room? I can't remember it clearly but I remember playing with jdong.

World of Padman is what I was thinking of:

https://worldofpadman.net/en/

I think people don’t get that different people handle different things in a game company. Porting a game doesn’t involve making new assets, story, etc. but they may think the time investment to port this could have been better spent on a new game even though that logic doesn’t hold.

Nintendo didn’t sell many Wii U units and this gives more people the chance to play these games. Porting these games to the Switch is a win for everyone!