Announced back in December of 2018, Online Services is a collection of free and cross platform game engine agnostic services for multiplayer games, as battle tested in Fortnite.  Services such as achievements, player inventory, matchmaking and voice communications will be made available completely free.  The roll-out is over time, with the ticketing and game analytics services currently being live, with the remaining coming at some point in the future. 

Unfortunately there has been a bit of a delay:

As a result of our current prioritizations, several roadmap items are being delayed. Most notably, we are rescheduling the release of the Player Reports and Player Data Storage services. To provide more detail, we are moving the roadmap to a Trello board, which you can bookmark and revisit at your convenience.

It’s not all bad news though, there is one major new change that should be happily received.

We’re also working to open up the identity and social services we built for Fortnite to support cross-play in partner games without requiring the use of Epic accounts or other Epic dependencies.

This should make the use of Epic’s Online Services a great deal more appealling to many developers… once they finally arrive.  If you are interested in signing for the SDK click here.  To learn more, watch the video embedded below.

GameDev News Unreal

When early images and advertisements for Super Mario Maker 2 began surfacing online, it became clear a new game theme had been added. Nintendo’s latest presentation for the upcoming release has now confirmed it’s based on the Wii U release, Super Mario 3D World. If you already spotted Cat Mario and clear pipes in promotional material, this news shouldn’t come as a surprise.

So, what exactly does this new game style include? Well, it’s got a lot of unique content, which essentially means your existing design is cleared when you swap over to this theme. Here’s a bit more about what to expect, courtesy of the PR:

Cat Mario – Cat Mario can climb walls, scratch, slide and pounce on enemies. Players can even use Cat Mario to climb up the Goal Pole!
Clear Pipe – Clear Pipes can be placed in any shape the player wants, but they have to be careful, as enemies can also slide through them.
Koopa Troopa Car – Hop in this sweet ride and zoom through the course. Players just have to make sure not to crash!
Track Block – The Track Block will follow any path the player draws. The blue one starts moving when the player steps on it.
Piranha Creeper – The Piranha Creeper follows the path that the player draws, extending its dangerous spiky stem around the course.
Who’s Who in Super Mario 3D World?: A cast of other familiar faces will also make appearances in Super Mario Maker 2, so players are in for a treat!

Of course, if you would prefer a different theme, you can always create a course in the style of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and New Super Mario Bros. U.

Do you like the look of this new game style? Have you got any crazy course ideas already mapped out in your mind? Tell us below.

If you managed to catch the Super Mario Maker 2 Direct earlier on, you likely saw the segment where the new game style based on Super Mario 3D World was revealed.

If you pause around the 9-minute mark of the video, you’ll notice there’s a vacant space next to the new theme on display. Noticeably, the title in this menu is labeled “Extra Game Styles” suggesting there’ll eventually be multiple other game themes to select from.

At this stage, there’s no guarantee, but if more styles are on the way, we can’t help but wonder what these designs would be based on and if Nintendo would release them as free updates or paid downloadable content.

What do you think about this? Would you like to see more styles added to the game? Tell us below.

Today marks Global Accessibility Awareness Day, one of the days we get to celebrate the progress our customers and partners have made to make their workplaces more inclusive, and then look ahead to what more we can do as a community to empower everyone in the workplace.

We celebrate because our customers are empowering their employees both with the accessible technology built into Microsoft 365, and with the inclusive cultural practices that make people love coming to work. We are comparing notes and learning from them as we also build that same inclusive culture at Microsoft.

Here in the U.K., we recently celebrated a milestone—a point on our journey—with recognition from the U.K. Government as a Disability Confident Leader. This status is awarded to organizations that commit to diversity and inclusion and encourage suppliers and vendors to do the same. Our team has worked tirelessly to put processes in place that can both create and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture; attracting and recruiting people with disabilities via our global Inclusive Hiring Program; training managers to understand the needs of those with visible and non-visible disabilities; assessing people for roles more flexibly so those with disabilities have the best opportunity to show their skills; adjusting workplaces to include sign language interpreters, and ensuring all staff have access to disability equality awareness training.

Looking ahead

We also look ahead to our big vision—an accessible and inclusive workplace for everyone—and what more we can do as a company and as a community to make it a reality. Today we’re excited to announce that live captions and subtitles in PowerPoint are rolling out now, and will soon be generally available to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscribers worldwide for Windows, Mac, and the web. We also look forward to the coming release of other new inclusive technologies built into Microsoft 365, like live captions and subtitles in Teams Meetings.

Present inclusively with live captions and subtitles in PowerPoint—We know how powerful a great presentation can be—whether it inspires us or aligns us to a common goal. Now, with support for 12 spoken languages and 60+ on-screen captions or subtitle languages, people who are deaf or hard of hearing can be included in these important team building moments. Additionally, with an increasingly global and remote set of collaborators, those who speak a different language from the presenter, or are listening in from a loud environment, can also more easily be included.

Transform the meeting experience for people with disabilities—We also know the critical role meetings play in how we work, and recently announced that live captions and subtitles will also be available in Teams Meetings. These capabilities are coming soon as a preview in English and complement the captioning and transcription features already generally available for recorded Teams meetings and live events in Stream, Teams, and Yammer. Whether in a 1-1 with your manager, or a company-wide all hands, everyone should feel included when the team gets together to meet, including people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

We constantly release new features and improvements to make our products not just compliant with the latest standards, but empowering for all users, both with and without disability. We encourage you to read all about these features in the Microsoft Accessibility Features Sway.

Building the inclusive workplace together

Many of our customers are committed to making this vision of an inclusive workplace a reality and are partnering with us to make it happen. Last month the Federal Government of Canada chose Microsoft as a partner in their effort to create a more modern and accessible Public Service. The Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility, said, “Equipping our public servants with accessible, reliable, and innovative technologies will unleash the potential of our world-class public service and result in better service delivery for all Canadians.” Here at Microsoft we agree—only when we represent the diversity we see in the world internally can we build the most innovative technology and serve our customers as they ought to be served.

We also see Rogers Communications, a leading Canadian communications and media company, shares our vision of a more inclusive workplace. Rogers is doing everything from transforming their physical workplace to be more collaborative and inclusive, to using the accessible technologies built into the Microsoft 365 applications their employees can use every day. Best of all, we’re helping and learning from each other along the way—our teams work regularly with Rogers to understand how our technology can better support their commitment to building an inclusive workplace, and Rogers’ Persons with Disability Diversity group works with us to learn how we embed Inclusive Design principles into our products and our culture. Read the full blog, published today, to learn more about how Rogers is building an accessible and inclusive culture to benefit employees, customers, and the broader community.

Join us!

We have so much more to do—as an organization, an employer, a leader, and a follower—in this journey towards an accessible and inclusive workplace, and we hope you’ll join us. Visit the Microsoft Accessibility site to learn more about our approach. Share your learnings with #LearningTogether and #GAAD and continue the conversation with @MSFTEnable on Twitter.

By AppleInsider Staff
Thursday, May 16, 2019, 02:51 pm PT (05:51 pm ET)

Apple on Thursday pushed out a redesign for its Investor Relations webpage that provides easy access to current and historical financial data, and integrates a live feed from the company’s Newsroom.

Sharing a general design theme with Apple’s product pages, the updated Investor Relations mini-site is dominated by a “News and Results” header, below which are — as described — the company’s most recent quarterly results and press releases. The banner was titled “Apple Investor News” in prior iterations of the site.

A section titled “Investor Updates” includes links to information covering the just ended fiscal quarter, specifically Apple’s official press release and Form 10-Q Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Previously, the same links were presented at the top of Apple’s Investor Relations webpage, but lacked the Investor Updates designation.

A second section presents a feed from Apple’s Newsroom, which collects the company’s latest press releases, photo galleries and corporate statements. More recently, editorial “features” penned by members of Apple’s PR team provide insight into corporate initiatives and new products. For example, a feature in April highlighted Apple’s efforts to mangrove forests, while a similarly labeled release in March promoted AirPods with the help of choreographer Hope Boykin.

Financial Data — previously a separate page accessed through a tab at the top of the Investor Relations homepage — is now included at the bottom of the front page. Past quarterly press releases, financial statements, data summaries and SEC filings are arranged by fiscal year, while a separate section breaks out annual 10-K filings dating back to 2015. Miscellaneous reports are also displayed and currently include a reclassification of net sales for fiscal 2018, capital return history, dividend history and an annual green bond impact report.

Also new is a revamped SEC Filings subsection, accessed through a dedicated tab on the Investor Relations homepage. Here, users can now subscribe to receive email alerts for Apple’s latest SEC filings, insider transactions and quarter and annual reports.

An Apple Values tab redirects visitors to the company’s various corporate initiatives: Accessibility, Education, Environment, Inclusion and Diversity, Privacy, and Supplier Responsibility. The mini-site’s Stock Price, Leadership and Governance, FAQ and Contact pages also feature minor graphical tweaks.

Nintendo just released a truckload of new information about Super Mario Maker 2 in its latest Direct presentation. One of the highlights of the 15-minute clip was the news the game would receive its very own story mode.

In this mode, you take control of Mario and your task is to rebuild Princess Peach’s castle. To do this, you’ll need coins and a lot of them. This means accepting jobs from the bulletin board and then playing through courses to help fund the construction. There are more than 100 levels hand-crafted by Nintendo, with plenty of expert designs on display. As Mario progresses, he’ll also encounter new characters who award him with even more coins. Exciting stuff!

Did you expect a story mode to be revealed for Super Mario Maker 2? Do you think you’ll spend much time in this mode? Construct a comment below!

Remember the infamous Angry Sun from Super Mario Bros. 3? Well, it’s making a comeback in Super Mario Maker 2. This time, though, it will be joined by its friend: the Moon!

The Moon course part is tied to the various themes within the game. In addition to all of the existing themes from the first Super Mario Maker game on the Wii U, there’ll now be desert, snow, forest and sky templates to select from. Using the Moon course part allows you to unlock the “night versions” for each of the themes and if you make contact with the Moon during a playthrough, you’ll wipe out all of the enemies on the screen.

When swapping a level to night mode, wild things happen. Expect floating Goombas, dimmed lighting in ghost houses and sandstorms in the desert levels. Items can even transform in the dark, so watch out for rotten mushrooms and poison water! To top it off, veteran Super Mario composer Koji Kondo has recorded new music for these themes.

Do you like the idea of night time levels in Super Mario Maker 2? Sound off in the comments below.