One series we didn’t necessarily expect to make a return was Clubhouse Games. You might recall the original Nintendo DS entry released in 2005. While it wasn’t the most thrilling concept, it was still a fun game to play with both friends and family, and even featured online play.

If you’ve been craving more tabletop action like this, during the latest Nintendo Direct Mini, Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics was revealed. As the name suggests, there are 51 games to enjoy in this new entry due out on 5th June. Some include Mancala, Slot Cars, Sliding Puzzle and Texas Hold’em. Local and online play is also supported for up to four people.

You can pre-purchase the game from the Nintendo Switch eShop right now. Anyone who does will receive Gold Points valued at 5% of the amount paid. Was this one of the highlights of the presentation for you? Leave a comment below.

As the world comes together to combat COVID-19, and remote work becomes a critical capability for many companies, customers have asked us how to best maintain the security posture of their cloud assets while enabling more remote workers to access them.

Misconfiguration of cloud security controls has been at the root of several recent data breaches, so it’s extremely important to continue monitoring your security posture as usage of cloud assets increases.

To help you prioritize the actions that you need to take, we are listing three common scenarios for remote workers and how to leverage Azure Security Center security controls to prioritize relevant recommendations for these scenarios:

1. As more users need to access resources remotely, you need to ensure that Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is enabled to enhance their identity protection.

• Azure Security Center has a security control called Enable MFA, ideally you should remediate all recommendations that are part of this security control, as shown below:

2. Some users might need remote access via RDP or SSH to servers that are in your Azure infrastructure.

• Instead of allowing full 24 x 7 access to those servers, ensure that you are using Just-In-Time (JIT) VM access to those servers. Make sure to review the Secure management ports control in Azure Security Center and remediate the recommendations that are relevant for this scenario.

3. Some of the workloads (servers, containers, databases) that will be accessed remotely by users might be missing critical security updates.

• Review the Remediate vulnerabilities control in Azure Security Center to prioritize the updates that must be installed. Make sure to review the result of all recommendations in built-in vulnerability assessment and remediate those items.

Security posture management is an ongoing process. Review your secure score to understand your progress towards a fully compliant environment.

Users of Azure are likely just a portion of your user base. Below is additional guidance on enabling and securing remote work for the rest of your organization:

If for some reason you’ve always wanted the action RPG Code of Princess on the Nintendo 3DS but still haven’t got around to purchasing it after all these years, now is the time to take action. Next week, on 31st March, Atlus will be removing the game from the eShop. Here’s the official tweet confirming the news:

While no reason was provided, we’ll take a guess and say it’s to bump up sales of the enhanced version – Code Princess EX, which was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2018. Code Princess was originally made available here in the west in 2012.

Will you be downloading this title while you still can, or have you moved on to the Switch port? Leave a comment below.

It’s been a while now since Nintendo revealed a sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was in development. Although there have been no official updates, there are some rumours currently making headlines around the internet.

One that seems to have gained traction comes from the Twitch stream of Tyler McVicker – an individual who runs the Valve News Network YouTube channel, recently interviewed the voice actor of G-Man, and is more commonly associated with “news and leaks” about Valve’s upcoming projects. He’s also got a Nintendo channel on the side and his claim to fame is uncovering the recently released Half-Life: Alyx years before rumours began to surface online.

McVicker’s reportedly been sharing information about Nintendo’s highly anticipated sequel to Breath of the Wild. Here’s a full summary via the Gaming Leaks and Rumours subreddit:

Unlike the first part, the game will be linear at the beginning. Canonically, Link already knows Hyrule, so there is no point in climbing the towers again

Instead, the developers have filled the world with a miasmic version of Ganon, and until the infection is cleared from location to location, it will be impossible to move around the entire Hyrule

In this regard, the locations are worked out much deeper than in the original. At the very least, McVicker hints at the appearance of dungeons, strongly inspired by one game that knows a lot about spreading dungeons around the open world

In general, while designing the world of Breath of the Wild 2, developers was inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2 (officially known) and another unknown game

Based on what has been shown in the original reveal trailer, this sort of a sequel definitely sounds plausible. A lot of Zelda fans would also love to see the return of dungeons, which have been a staple of the series over the years.

What do you make of this rumour? Could you see dungeons making a return and Link having to clear Hyrule of a miasmic version of Ganon? Share your thoughts below.

Accelerate classified missions with unparalleled connectivity, high availability, and resiliency across three regions with more than 35 services

Azure Government Secret recently achieved Provisional Authorization (PA) at Department of Defense Impact Level 6 (IL6) and Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 503 with facilities at ICD 705. We’re also announcing a third region to enable even higher availability for national security missions to stay ahead of their unique threats.

Built exclusively for the needs of US government and operated by cleared US citizens, Azure Government Secret delivers dedicated regions to maintain the security and integrity of classified Secret workloads while enabling reliable access to critical data. The first cloud natively connected to classified networks; Azure Government Secret enables customers to leverage options for private, resilient, high-bandwidth connectivity.

Protect national security production workloads with geodiversity across three regions

Azure Government Secret is designed for the unique requirements of critical national security workloads that cannot be served out of a single geographic location. To provide the geodiversity required, Azure Government Secret delivers across three dedicated regions for US Federal Civilian, Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and US government partners working within Secret enclaves. These dedicated Azure regions are located over 500 miles apart to enable applications to stay running in the face of a disaster without a break in continuity of operations.

In addition, these regions provide greater choice when working across multiple locations and delivering cloud-to-edge scenarios. With comprehensive cloud services Azure Government Secret enables faster innovation for the mission from cloud to tactical edge meeting the critical availability needs of the warfighter.

Enabling classified missions at scale with more than 35 services

Designed and built for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Marketplace solutions, Azure Government Secret provides a broad range of commercial innovation for classified workloads.­ Some of the services include: identity, analytics, security, and high performance computing to support advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Operated by cleared US citizens, these new regions are part of Azure Government, delivering a familiar, consistent experience and alignment with existing resellers and programs. Eligible customers can also leverage cleared Microsoft cloud support for their workloads.

Gain speed by connecting directly or extending on-premises networks

With Azure Government Secret, customers can connect natively to classified networks or leverage options for private, resilient, high-bandwidth connectivity using ExpressRoute and ExpressRoute Direct:

• Native connection: Agencies with direct connections through US government classified networks can connect natively to Azure Government Secret.
• ExpressRoute: Extend on-premises networks into Azure Government Secret regions over a private connection facilitated by a connectivity provider with ExpressRoute.
• ExpressRoute Direct: Get the ability to connect directly into Azure Government Secret locations using ExpressRoute Direct.

Continued investments in commercial parity across data classifications

In addition to serving mission customers at DoD IL6 and ICD 503, we continue to invest in rapidly delivering new Azure Government capabilities to support mission needs across all data classifications for any US government customer. In the last six months we’ve continued our drive toward commercial parity, adding hundreds of features and launching 40+ new services and 101 total services in FedRAMP High, with more to come across Azure commercial, Azure Government and Azure Government Secret.

These continued investments enable customers across the full spectrum of government, including departments in every state, all the federal cabinet agencies, and each military branch, modernize their IT to better achieve their missions.

To learn more about Azure Government Secret contact us or visit Azure Government for national security.

Ever wondered what’s under the hood of Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch? Probably not, given the type of game it is, but that hasn’t stopped Digital Foundry from taking a look. To cut to the chase, the game renders at 1920 x 1080 in docked and 1280 x 720 while in portable. Anti-aliasing is “practically absent” from this new entry, so expect a few jaggies.

The frame rate is probably the most interesting detail. New Horizons runs at 30fps regardless of whether it’s in docked or portable mode. While there are few minor blips, it’s a relatively smooth experience. In this department, it’s outdone by its console predecessors. The GameCube version of Animal Crossing and Animal Crossing: City Folk on the Wii both ran at 60fps. The frame rate cut is tied to the visual upheaval, which Digital Foundry considers to be a worthy sacrifice.

The game is believed to be running on the same in-house EAD engine as titles like ARMS, Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Maker 2. As a result, it’s quite feasible that it’s making use of the same rendering technologies for lighting, shaders, and materials. Havok Physics have also likely been used, but appear to be put to minimal use in the game. There are also other effects like bloom and ambient occlusion, and pop-in issues seem to be a thing of the past.

Those are just some of the highlights, check out the video above for the full rundown.