Edition 20, Week 30: The 411

A bit earlier than usual, but here's edition 20 of the Sunday Report!

Let's talk Asobi for a bit and why it exists at all.

To put it in plain words: I just wanted a better Remote Play experience. One with "Low Latency and High Fidelity", but it's not just that. I wanted a better interface, something that looked better and made more sense. Something that would rid me of those annoying black bars when I played via remote play, something more instant, something that would push forwards instead of just doing what everyone else did. Nothing.

This whole space has been close to death in most ways, no innovation, no new solutions and lack of polish. And it's been like that for years.

I was just done waiting.

In the past ~6 months I've been pushing this space hard. Introducing new ideas such as the Ambient light spill, realtime 3D conversion, Cloud gaming, split-screen, specialised low latency modes, remote play on Apple Watch, surfacing Last Played in the interface, the list goes on and on.

But that's just it, it's not about being first. It's about enriching the experience. It's about facilitating true next gen remote play for you: the players.

Only since introducing Asobi I'm finally seeing movement from the competition. I'm just sad that they needed a push to move that needle. Pretty much everything I've shipped has been possible since at least the iPhone 15 (2023). I think they just got complacent.

The only thing I do have to ask is to have patience with me while I keep building and pushing out updates. The choice to make my own remote play client instead of just baking in Chiaki (the open source remote player) like most competitors do was for a reason.

And that reason was control, to not having to worry about my app being taken down because of licensing issues (Chiaki AGPL) or having to abide by opinionated code.

The downside is that everyone else (except for PXPlay) using Chiaki has a five-year head start on me, since I don't have the luxury they have by using it as a foundation.

As such, especially since vibe-coding has become more of a thing, you'll see more and more remote play apps enter this space. So keep that in mind, that there are a lot of tells that indicate they're using it.

Either way, I digress.

For now, I'll keep on pushing the boundaries and hope they start moving more. I honestly don't mind the copying, I see it as a compliment, it just shows who's leading the way forwards 🥳

On to the next 6 months! And thanks for having patience with me while I build Asobi out.

So let's update on what's going on:

Asobi for Apple

Since last week we have access to the complete library of PlayStation Cloud games (~5150) on all Apple platforms, which is a feat by itself. All games you own should just show in the owned tab, just like on the PlayStation Portal. The update went down quite smoothly, although one bug arose due to the unification that affects about 100 PS4 games -> which will get a fix this week.

What's next? You'll see me leverage more of the capabilities of cloud gaming and remote play.

Some features will finally exit the experimental stage, the Mac version is getting some great updates such as 3D. You'll see new visual filters being added soon. New immersive modes for Vision Pro, the list continues.

But most importantly bug-fixes.

Version 1.4.2 is scheduled for week 31.

Asobi for Android

Well, I keep on saying it will be released tomorrow. Lol. But yeah, stuff happens. The main reason version 1.0.7 isn't out yet is due to Android 11. I managed to obtain a Logitech G Cloud which arrived last Friday, so I've been toying with that.

The moment I'm done writing this Sunday Report I'll be doing the last bit of testing and unless new bugs pop up you'll see it release either later today or tomorrow.

The update will have the new adaptive frame pacing, support for PS3/PS4 cloud game streaming, the unification and whole library of course, multiple bug fixes, and Android 11 support to name a few.

You'll see it drop soon.

Asobi for Steam

Another week passed, and still no news from Valve. So I've started work on getting this published myself via asobiapp.com, that means I'll have to start setting up a payment method, something in relation to distributing license keys and some changes to the plumbing. I hope this won't take too long.

Asobi for Meta Quest

I pushed it to the Meta Quest store, no news as of yet on approval, but it won't be long now.

Asobi on the web

Although I've been working hard on the apps, I've also put in work behind the scenes on a new website.

Some of you have noticed for some time now that the website also shows a list of games that can be cloud streamed, and lets you start Asobi from it. The reason this exists is because Asobi has the ability to share links to games so you can have them join the fun, which incidentally launched with version 1.4.1 -> there's more coming to this. Either way, it's a nice social experiment.

What I'm also working on: better explanations of what you can do with Asobi, and spotlights on what each platform can do.

Stay tuned. Big re-launch coming!

Midori for Apple (r/MidoriApp)

There's still one issue I need to resolve, which came up recently in relation to the cloud library, plus a stream-stability issue where it cuts off your stream mid-game (which incidentally seems to happen outside of Midori as well). I'm looking into it and trying to get it fixed (if I can) for the next update!