Inti Creates has revealed more info on its upcoming entry in the Gunvolt series at Bitsummit 2019. Gunvolt Chronicles: Luminous Avenger iX was revealed at the Kyoto-based indie game festival last year and it is now confirmed to be launching on 26th September.

The first game in the series since Azure Striker Gunvolt 2 in 2016, Copen is the mysterious protagonist this time around and he’s searching for a MacGuffin known as the ‘Butterfly Effect’. He has support in the form of his robot companion Lola, a ‘reliable partner’ with the ability to scan enemy weapons and create ‘mock’ versions of them for Copen to use. Handy!

The trailer above gives a good idea of the action and characters you’ll encounter on your journey, and the pixel art in these shots appears to uphold the series’ retro aesthetic:

It’ll cost $14.99 when it launches on 26th September, which sounds like ages away, but summer has a habit of flying by, so we look forward to trying this one out soon on Switch.

Are you a fan of the series? Do you like the look of the additions in this entry? Share your thoughts in the usual place.

Sure, Mario Kart Tour is coming to mobile devices later this year, but right now, we’re still technically playing the same Mario Kart game we were on the Wii U five years ago. Yep, on 30th May 2014, Mario Kart 8 was released in North America and Europe on a Nintendo system that was at the time struggling to appeal to the masses.

The particular entry set itself apart from previous outings in the Mario Kart series with an all-new anti-gravity feature. The DLC was also a first for the series, adding in free Mercedes-Benz karts and two paid DLC packs later down the line – featuring more characters, vehicles and tracks. The 200cc was an added bonus. All of this paid off in the long-run, with Mario Kart 8 becoming the Wii U’s best-selling title and shifting more than eight million copies worldwide.

This followed with Nintendo releasing an enhanced version, titled Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, on the Switch in 2017. The main selling point this time around was the inclusion of a classic battle mode, which was oddly missing from the original version of the game. Since the arrival of Deluxe, we’ve received a number of unique updates such as Link’s bike from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and even Nintendo Labo compatibility. This Switch release has also become a critical and commercial success, selling more than sixteen million copies globally to make it the hybrid platform’s best-selling title.

Celebrate Mario Kart 8’s fifth anniversary in the comments and tell us if you’re ready for a completely new entry in the series.

Google has rolled out changes to its Android Google Play storefront that require devs to declare their target audience and abide by additional rules if that audience includes children.

The new rules are the subject of a post over on the Google Developer Blog and are an evolution of existing policies that deal with content and advertising guidelines for kids’ apps.

A full rundown of the new policies in effect can be found on Google’s developer policy center, but, in short, all devs on the Google Play Store are required to list the target age group for their game or app in the dev console’s new target audience and content section.

Games and apps aimed at kids, or that may appeal to children, are required to meet policy requirements regarding content and personal information and use ads from a network with certified compliance to Google Play’s families policies. The new section is live in the Google Play developer console as of today, but developers that already have apps on the store have until September 1 to fill the form out and comply with the new policies.

This move comes after Google has been called out multiple times for inappropriate content aimed at children in the Google Play Store. Last December, 22 child advocacy groups urged the FTC to launch an investigation into the storefront, alleging that numerous apps in its Family section collect, use, or share personal information from children without providing notice to parents, target kids with in-app purchases or advertising, or feature content not appropriate for young audiences. A separate Wired investigation from this April came to a similar conclusion, finding a number of games with inappropriate content and “dubious content and permissions” hosted on the storefront.

Newsbrief: Leap Motion, the AR and VR technology company behind the open-source North Star AR headset, has reportedly been purchased by the UK-based firm UltraHaptics for $30 million.

Sources familiar with the matter disclosed the sale to The Wall Street Journal, though the acquisition has yet to be officially announced. Leap Motion’s engineering staff and co-founder Dave Holz will reportedly join UltraHaptics following the sale, while co-founder Michael Buckward is said to be leaving the company.

The Wall Street Journal also notes that Leap Motion’s $30 million price tag is roughly a tenth of the company’s valuation from only a few years back. Further back, Apple had reportedly tried to make an offer for the company as well. According to 9 to 5 Mac, the iPhone maker approached Leap Motion as recently as 2018 and offered between $30 million and $50 million for the company, but the deal fell through.

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PST today, members of the Xbox One Preview Beta Ring will begin receiving the latest 1906 Xbox One system update (19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1906\18362.4028.190516-1940).

DETAILS:

• OS version released: 19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1906\18362.4028.190516-1940
• Available: 2:00PM PDT 5/22/19
• Mandatory Date/Time: 3:00 AM PDT 5/23/19

New Features:

This first update is meant to lay the groundwork for what’s to come in 1906, so while you’ll find fixes and known issues listed below, please keep an eye out for feature announcements as they’re ready to be previewed. Thanks, as always, for your passion for helping make Xbox One system updates the best they can be prior to release to GA!

Mixer

• Users can watch full-screen Mixer streams on the Mixer Twist.  Simply navigate to the Mixer twist, select a stream and hit A.  Please test out these new features and provide feedback.

Fixes:

Audio:

• Fixes addressing the stability of audio when the console comes out of Instant on mode.

System

• Fixes to narrator bugs in Settings.
• Various UI alignment fixes to the Home and settings.
• Localization fixes.

Known Issues:

Audio

• Headsets are not being assigned to the users profiles and not working correctly.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

My Games and Apps – Apps/Games taking too long to start error

• Sometimes users may encounter this launch error and we are tracking a fix.  Workaround – Hard reboot the console.

“Can you play with your friends online?” you ask. Odd question, but… erm, well no. Because that would introduce a conflict of interest with the game’s online leaderboards, you see. – Nintendo, 2019

After making a design decision that had many a journalist double and triple checking sources, Nintendo confirmed this week that it is not possible to play with or against friends online in Super Mario Maker 2. As with so many aspects of the modern world, it seems that with every step forward, the Kyoto company takes two steps back. Or maybe its head is moving too fast for its body. Or perhaps the body is dragging the head along behind it…

Whatever analogy you care to employ, Nintendo’s slightly baffled replies to seemingly obvious questions used to play as charming, in a way. In the past you could brush off quirky implementations of industry-standard features with a smile. “Oh Nintendo!” you’d laugh, before diving into some incredible Mario game and forgetting about whatever it was that the company had borked this time round.

If you’re being generous, you could argue that there’s a childlike naivety to its thinking and it’s this that leads to the company’s unique ideas. There’s arguably no better example of ‘the Nintendo difference’ than the original Wii. We remember looking that TV remote controller and feeling perplexed. What is this thing, strange and yet reassuringly familiar? How is two GameCubes duct taped together supposed to topple the might of Sony and Microsoft’s offerings? Fortunately, Nintendo had clear and coherent answers to those questions and ended up reframing how people – gamers and non-gamers alike – viewed console gaming, expanding the definition to be more inclusive. Lovely.

Other times the company fails to answer even the most basic questions to anybody’s satisfaction. Take Wii Speak, the room-wide microphone peripheral from 2008 that sat next to your telly and let everyone in the room converse with everyone in another room over the internet. Years after the wider console gaming community got comfortable with headsets, Wii Speak seemed like an anachronism to everybody but Nintendo. The inclusive philosophy was quaint – admirable, even – but to the majority of gamers the company sounded like your gramps recalling the first time he encountered telephony. “Look! You speak and the soundwaves travel across the world wide web as if you’re somewhere else!” Yep, got it.

The inclusive philosophy was quaint – admirable, even – but to the majority of gamers the company sounded like your gramps recalling the first time he encountered telephony.

We can forgive the developers the odd ill-conceived peripheral and chuckle at ‘crazy ol’ Nintendo’. Remember the Vitality Sensor? Ha! Only Nintendo, am I right?! It gets harder to chuckle heartily when it comes to key components and core services, though.

Remember the launch of the Wii U when we were all intrigued with the GamePad and the potential it brought? Nintendo fans the world over were dreaming of brilliant ways to interact with each other and the games using this new input method. What about two-player? Can you use a second GamePad to play golf with a mate? What about as a simple touch pad with party games?

These were obvious questions to people seeing the concept for the first time, but Nintendo’s response made it seem liked two GamePads had never been considered. The questions sent reps scrambling for senior team members. “Two of them? Yeah, seems plausible – there’s only one in the box. Let me just check that for you…” Confusion went on to characterise that entire console cycle.

It’s getting harder for fans to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt, too. Super Mario Maker for 3DS didn’t allow players to upload creations online, instead opting only for local sharing and cutting the legs off one of the brilliant original’s core concepts. Rather than find a solution to protect younger games, it seems features are simply cut out and then glossed over with a bit of marketing speak.

For every golden idea to come from ‘the Nintendo difference’, nowadays there seems to some backwards piece of thinking to negate it.

For every golden idea to come from ‘the Nintendo difference’, nowadays there seems to some backwards piece of thinking to negate it. The odd disconnect between simple solutions and Nintendo’s reluctance to follow the crowd creates a space which, on one hand enables the company to think outside the box and solve problems in new ways. Splatoon 2 reimagines the squad-based shooter, with ‘the Nintendo difference’ enabling even rubbish players to be useful to their team by inking the terrain.

Conversely, we all remember the comically convoluted spaghetti mess of cables of the officially licenced Splatoon 2 voice chat headset. Developers have taken it upon themselves to remove the cumbersome Nintendo Switch Online voice app from the equation, and other companies are ready to provide assistance, yet Nintendo’s app-based solution is the one it’s doggedly ploughing ahead with. We say ‘doggedly’ because we can’t imagine the developers are oblivious to other solutions – this is a choice.

So, again, ‘the Nintendo difference’ becomes a negative. Where it once referred to the overall polish of a game or some genius spin on a mechanic that we’d never seen or even thought of before, it’s increasingly synonymous with some inexplicable decision or ungainly solution to a problem that’s already been solved.

The ‘problems’ introduced through playing with friends across the internet in Mario Maker 2 are easily remedied. Add an unranked option, for example, or allow for a team mode. Why is the co-op mode affected when that doesn’t even have leaderboards? These are choices. In the past you could imagine that the company simply didn’t consider the option, blundering down a path once the design doc was finished, but that isn’t believable anymore. It comes across as wilful ignorance and refusal to embrace the way we actually play games in the 21st century.

Yes, the local experience is usually optimal, but for some it’s simply not practical to go to a friend’s house, or meet up in the park with your Switch.

Yes, the local experience is usually optimal, but for some it’s simply not practical to go to a friend’s house, or meet up in the park with your Switch. What if you live miles away? What if you live in a dangerous neighbourhood? What if it’s raining? What if your friend isn’t allowed out past a certain time?

The internet has brought gamers together for decades now. Sure, there are grimy parts – and the mute button is a godsend – but if we’re already dealing with the cumbersome Friends list set-up Nintendo seems married to, it’s unthinkable that we can’t use it to, you know, play with friends.

None of this would be quite so perplexing or galling if Nintendo wasn’t now charging for its online service. Even at its lower price compared to online services on other consoles, paying for it raises expectations. Nintendo’s ineffectiveness in the online space might be expected given the company’s history, but it’s incredible that it seems content for “Oh, Nintendo is rubbish with online” to be a common refrain with even die-hard fans.

Not supporting amiibo is one thing, but being able to play with your friends online should be a given in 2019. This isn’t blind, childlike naivety or a unique vision – this was a decision made and it was obviously the wrong one. Obvious, that is, to everyone except Nintendo, it would seem. We can hope for a patch, and we’re sure Super Mario Maker 2 will have plenty to make us smile, but it’s a shame that these fundamental mistakes take the sheen off what is otherwise shaping up to be a glistening jewel in Switch’s crown.

What does ‘The Nintendo Difference’ mean to you these days? Are you content with Nintendo’s approach to online gaming? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions below.