🟪 #111: I have a new hobby, and AYANEO does, too

I'm now an audiophile, AYANEO is making a phone, we have PlayStation 6 leaks, and Google is not happy.

Hi, hello, and welcome, to a new edition of the overkill digest newsletter.

I am Kevin, host of this newsletter, and someone who clearly doesn't have enough hobbies. Because I got into high-fidelity audio. Aka, I'm turning into an... audiophile (*shudders*).

Jokes aside, this new rabbit hole of mine is deep. Really deep. For the past week or so, I've been watching hours of YouTube videos, reading so many articles, and spent the majority of yesterday looking at frequency response graphs. I might be slightly obsessed.

I also ended up ordering a FIIO M21 and a pair of Moondrop Aria 2 in-ear monitors (IEMs). (I even have a review IEM on its way to me, despite never having tested any headphones?) They should arrive next week, and you can be sure that I will share this new fascination here on overkill. I plan to share all I learn with you, and review a bunch of stuff. So if there is anything you want me to look at, because you either want me to test it, or because you think it'll help on my journey, hit reply and send it my way.

Ok, that said, let's get to this week's news. I've slightly changed the format of the newsletter (I told you, there will be experiments), so let me know using the feedback buttons at the end of the email, if you like them or naaaaah.

🚀 Big Moves

AYANEO is working on a phone, after all. During a mega streaming session (I think it went on for 8 hours or so?!) AYANEO CEO, Arthur Zhang, shared the company's upcoming roadmap for the second half of 2025 and 2026. Part of that roadmap is a phone.

We asked Zhang about a year ago if AYANEO were to ever work on such a device, but back then, he denied such a thing was planned as the high cost of licensing was something of a barrier. But now, that has changed. Also, in the image they shared (linked above), it looks like the device will look like a modern version of the HTC myTouch.

Next to a phone, AYANEO also announced a new sub-brand for cheaper Android handhelds, a new retro-inspired portrait handheld, a bunch of new mini-PCs, a dual-screen Android handheld (while selling a Windows-based dual-screen; AYANEO clearly knows how to cannibalize their own sales), an 11-inch laptop-thing, whatever Code R is supposed to be, and a new entry in their Next-lineup.

So, as always, way too much stuff, all at once.

PlayStation 6 & PlayStation Handheld Specs Leaked. Ok, first of all, take this with a grain of salt. Actually, take this with a Dead Sea amount of salt. But YouTuber/leaker Moore's Law Is Dead has shared, what he thinks, are specs for the upcoming consoles (leaked from a 2023 AMD presentation).

In essence, the PS6 is rumored to come with a chip featuring 8 Zen 6 cores and between 40 and 48 RDNA 5 Compute Units (CU) clocked at over 3GHz. That's lower than the 60 CUs in the PS5 Pro, but they run much faster, resulting in double the rasterization performance of the PS5 Pro (and triple the PS5 Non-Pro).

As for the handheld, it targets half the rasterization performance of the PS5 Non-Pro, but with better ray-tracing. Also, like the PS6, it's rumored to be backwards compatible with PS5 and PS4 games.

Pricing for the handheld is between $400 and $500, and for the PS6 around $500. The launch window is supposedly late 2027 or early 2028, which is so far away, that all of this might be BS, and leakers could just claim "well, they changed the spec sheet".

🎮 Platform Updates

Google must allow alternative stores in the Play Store. This is kinda huge. Google lost its appeal of a judge’s order (in that Epic vs. Google case), and now has to allow the Epic Game Store (and other stores) to the Play Store. Queue the Xzibit meme.

Itch.io is looking for a new payment provider, that doesn't hate NSFW games. Meanwhile, free NSFW games are being listed again, while listing paid ones will take longer, according to creator leafo.

💻 Hardware & Software

The Nintendo Switch just became... more expensive. Ok, so. Nintendo is raising the prices because of the Trump-tax. I get that, other tech companies are doing this, too. So far so good. However... WHY HAS THE SWITCH PRICE NOT CHANGED IN 7 YEARS???? The Switch 2 is out, who is still buying Switch 1s??? That price should go down, not up, Trump-tax or not?!?!?! Nintendo is such a weird company at times. But hey, at least they are not increasing the price of the Switch 2 (for now).

Preorders for the Xbox ROG Ally might start during gamescom. (This link is in French, sorry!) gamescom takes place between August 20th to 24th, and it's apparently on the 20th that the two new Xbox-branded ASUS handhelds will be available for preorder. Which would make sense, as gamescom is the first time users can get their hands on on either of the two. Oh, and play Silksong while you're at it. (We're not going to gamescom this year, so no XBOX ROG Ally X hands-on for me, unfortunately.)

Duckstation is maybe, maybe not, disappearing from Linux. What a ride. May I suggest everyone just use RetroArch on Linux and call it a day?

The Battlefield 6 gameplay trailer is out. This trailer, but especially this video by jackfrags have me hopeful that BF6 will not suck, unlike BF2042, the last game I ever preordered. I finally bought a new monitor, that supports both 4K240 and 1080p480, and I kinda wanna try playing BF6 at that high of a refresh rate. But, no preorders!!!!!!! (The monitor is an ASUS PG32UCDP)

🎲 Playthings

Everything shown at the Nintendo Partner Direct. This Direct was such a snooze-fest. It was so bad, in fact, some people online claim that it might have done damage to the Switch 2 sales numbers. I'm not sure if I agree (neither does Nintendo), but I know that watching the whole event live was definitely a waste of time, and the link above by The Verge has all the trailers, anyway (on a related note: I like how The Verge designed that page, I might steal some ideas for the upcoming overkill redesign).