It’s almost “show time.” That’s the phrasing used in media invitations to Apple’s March 25 event, where the company is expected to unveil its subscription packages for video, news, magazines, and games. It appears Apple is continuing to “pull the thread” to see where the future of television leads, and it sure looks like that future is tight integration between iOS, Apple TV and HomePod.

A new expansion of the Walled Garden

When Apple launches new products and services, it rarely focuses much attention on all the work required behind the scenes. This creates the illusion that such product launches are easy, just something that a corporation threw together based on a checklist of necessary features.

Most of the criticism directed at Apple niggles with what those features are, without much thought to what would be involved with “adding” something as “simple” as, say, native Spotify integration with HomePod, some legacy ports, or some other massive effort that’s easy to dream up as a “missing feature.”

Apple’s launches also create the illusion that any other company could just throw money at the same problem and get the same results. That clearly didn’t occur with Samsung’s Milk or Galaxy Gear; Microsoft’s PlaysForSure, its purchase of Nokia or its Surface hardware; Google’s various TV box offerings, its acquisition of Motorola, its attempts at building tablets or notebooks; or the entire industry’s consortium to develop digital video distribution services such as UltraViolet downloads or Miracast streaming. Doing anything big is actually extremely hard.

Looking back on Apple’s recent history in television, it’s clear that a lot of invisible efforts are required to build attractive and sustainable solutions. There are few initiatives that Apple has worked on that have fizzled, such as iTunes LP and Extra, its digital answers to DVD bonus content and the “enhanced CD” with video clips which never really took off.

However, the threads that Apple keeps pulling in television are overall establishing a very successful expansion of the Walled Garden that Apple first created to make iTunes’ commercial music and movies available as “audio-visual software” for Macs and then iPods, and then the App Store market that launched native software titles for iPhones and later iPad.

Services are a subscription to sell hardware

While pundits keep forwarding the idea that Apple is giving up hardware to simply become a Netflix, the reality is that Apple’s expanding efforts to make AirPlay 2, Apple Music streaming and iTunes movie downloads available on partner hardware from Samsung TVs to Alexa WiFi microphones is part of a strategy where Apple TV, HomePod and iPads all get a greatly expanded ecosystem to thrive in. Subscription software is a killer app that keeps killing.

Rather than giving up hardware for Services—as the dumbest hot takes suggest—Apple is reducing its dependence on unit sales of digital downloads and increasingly moving to a subscription model for audio, video, applications, and games—specifically with the intent to sell more hardware.

Apple clearly thinks people will use AirPlay 2 and subscription content on a variety of devices once they get a taste

Apple has already largely migrated iTunes from download sales to Apple Music’s subscription streaming. Those efforts to shift the company’s legacy iTunes downloads into a subscription model is seldom appreciated as an example of astute adaption to change. However, Apple has rapidly turned around its huge ship in same the way that Microsoft had to scramble to attach a web browser to Windows to keep control of the PC desktop in the 1990s. It was pivot or die, and Apple has survived stronger than ever.

Spotify, a company that was claiming the most music streaming subscribers globally and crowing that it does business on platforms the tech media likes to describe as “dominant,” is suddenly crying that Apple Music and the Apple Store is a “monopoly” and that it needs governments to intervene on its behalf to force Apple to serve its interests for free.

That speaks volumes about the success Apple is seeing in making its shift from downloads to subscriptions. It also says something really unflattering about Spotify’s ability to find customers on its own and the supposed “dominance” of Android and Windows as computing platforms.

Oddly enough, the same pundits who squawk about Apple Music being the end of HomePod are hopeful that Spotify will soon learn how to navigate the consumer electronics hardware market and figure out how to sell a new device that helps to sell Spotify as a service. It’s like they don’t even read their own work.

Subscriptions better support software development

While subscription streaming royalties don’t deliver nearly the same revenues as music downloads or CDs for artists, subscription software appears to be working out really well for developers.

Adobe and Microsoft have both shifted their massive software business to subscription models, and the result has been dramatically successful. It has created reoccurring revenues that support ongoing development in a model that’s far more healthy—and sane—compared to big, expensive marketing releases every couple years that have to focus on fancy features to woo software suite purchases.

Microsoft’s Office 365 is now an App Store subscription

Rather than Adobe trying to hype up the Healing Brush as the reason to pay for an all-new Photoshop, or Microsoft having to refresh the UI of Office with the Ribbon just to push more boxes out the door, both software houses can focus on what they know to be actual, incremental improvements and deliver these as soon as they’re ready.

It’s also working out well for small developers, who can work on new titles and app functionality rather than focusing on sales and marketing—or running into the situation where their customers expect perpetual free app upgrades without ever paying for any of that work.

Subscription software is effectively the best way to pay for software because it keeps subscribers up-to-date on the latest tools without needing to regularly sell them on buying each new iteration. You just have to sell users on an ongoing subscription once and then keep them happy with it.

Apple and the Subscription OS

While Microsoft convinced the world back in the 1990s that the best way to sell software was to monopolize the market and sell big monolithic packages, its business was really created and sustained by Windows’ invisible tax that was slapped on PC boxes. When people bought new PCs, they effectively got Windows “for free” because it was being paid for by the PC licensee. That effectively blocked any competition for alternative PC operating systems like OS/2, NeXT, BeOS or Linux.

Everyone in the tech media could only see that Microsoft was also selling standalone Windows retail boxes, and implored Apple to follow the same model of charging money for its Mac system software. That was dumb advice that didn’t work out well at all.

With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, Apple made iOS free and promised regular updates to deliver features that wouldn’t cost extra down the line. In 2009 Apple slashed the price of macOS upgrades from $129 to just $29 for Snow Leopard, then later to $19 on Mountain Lion, and finally began shipping new updates for free starting with 2013’s Mavericks. As with Windows PCs, the price of the OS was now hidden in the development costs of Macs.

With Mavericks, Apple turned macOS into, effectively, a free software subscription

Mac and iOS buyers effectively get a subscription to several years of OS updates by paying a premium for Apple hardware. So Apple effectively pioneered the “healthy and sane” approach to subscription software upgrades with macOS, iOS and its other OS platforms. It also began bundling significant software packages with new hardware, and these are also updated for free: Pages, Keynote, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand and so on.

Apple has also seen success in selling online services under the iCloud brand, which provides cloud storage, backup, cloud sync and a variety of other services all bundled into an ongoing fee. Services is now Apple’s fastest-growing segment in revenues, outpacing the growth of both Macs and iPads. Yet Services aren’t coming at the cost of hardware sales; they are clearly driving new hardware sales.

In fact, the hardware that gains value from paid or free Services subscriptions (Apple Music, iCloud, OS updates, iWork) is what Apple is selling best. Hardware that doesn’t really benefit from content or OS subscriptions have largely been discontinued (AirPort routers, printers, displays, webcams).

One of the biggest potential hardware beneficiaries of these subscription models is Apple TV, iPad, and HomePod, all of which become more useful when you have subscription content to play on them. And once you are getting subscription content, you have more reason to buy additional Apple hardware to use with it, as the next segment will examine tomorrow.

We’ve made it to yet another weekend and it’s finally time to relax with some of our favourite games. After the excitement of the physical Hollow Knight release and the horror of seeing Zelda: Breath of the Wild without its cel-shading this week, team Nintendo Life has gathered to talk over our weekend gaming plans. You can read up on what we’re up to below, and make sure to join in via our poll and comment sections. Enjoy!

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

This is random, and I’m not sure why, but I’ve reverted back to the old 3DS to play a few throwbacks this weekend: Pokémon Alpha Sapphire (most hate this game, but I personally love it) as well as X & Y, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, various Zelda titles, Luigi’s Mansion, etc. As I look at this list, I realize I may just be getting excited for all of the new games in these franchises coming out on Switch later this year… woah, insight.

Dom Reseigh-Lincoln, reviewer

This weekend I’m almost certainly going to be playing more of RICO. It’s giving me the shooter fix I need when I’m commuting or chilling out on the sofa. Even when things get really challenging in the latter parts of the campaign I just love it. Plus those weapon skins won’t earn themselves.

I’ll also be spending some time with Motorsport Manager on Switch. I played the original back on mobile a couple of years ago and really dug how well it captured the complexity and abject disappointment of modern F1. Here’s hoping this version lives up to expectations. Have a good ‘un!

Ryan Craddock, staff writer

To be completely honest with you, I’ll likely be ditching the Switch this weekend to play through one of my old favourites on Steam (although it did also launch on Nintendo DS, so there’s no need to ban me from the site just yet). That old favourite is Plants vs. Zombies, a strategy, tower defence-like game featuring a quirky cast of… Well, plants and zombies.

I’ve never played the DS version sadly, but I can wholeheartedly recommend it if it’s anything like its PC counterpart. There’s something so wonderfully addictive about it, and it’s one of the very few games that I’ve completed multiple times. I’ve been itching to play it for a few weeks, so I’m looking forward to hours of uninterrupted bliss.

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

Modern Combat Blackout is off the table! Oh, I still very much love it, but I am giving it a hard pass until Gameloft’s impending balancing patch that will nerf all the game breaking, no skill, auto-tracking guns into obscurity. This weekend brings the holy trinity of Nintendo events (Splatoon 2 Splatfest, ARMS Party Crash Bash and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate spirit board event) so expect to see me online often.

Whenever I need a break from the online hustle, back to Assault Android Cactus+ I go… and maybe a slice of the new Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker Special DLC chapter. My game of the week is naturally RICO. Kick door, shoot baddies, drop corny one-liner, rinse and repeat. Video gaming bliss!

Gavin Lane, staff writer

After nabbing a 400GB micro SD card on sale a couple of weeks back, I’ve been redownloading all my archived games (nearly two days it’s taken me!) and I’m now looking at a fully loaded Switch with about 80GB to spare. So, this weekend I’ll be revisiting a few of the things I was forced to archive – namely DOOM, Yoku’s Island Express and Thumper. I haven’t played Rocket League for ages, either, and that’s always a good time.

A conversation with a colleague also reminded me of the brilliance of Just Shapes & Beats, the musical bullet hell game I reviewed last year which seemed to get lost in the avalanche of eShop games – it’s an utter winner and just the notes of the opening theme put a big grin on my face, so I’ll be squeezing that in somewhere, too.

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

Pre-orders for the next Labo cardboard kit, due out on 12th April, are now live on the Nintendo UK store.

The Nintendo Labo Toy-Con 04: VR Kit looks to offer the most unique Labo experience yet, allowing users to experience virtual reality on the Switch for the first time with special Toy-Con VR Goggles.

In total, there are four pre-order options, as previously announced by Nintendo earlier this month. You can purchase the full package or if you opt with the starter set, you’ll also be able to pick up the two expansion packs.

Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale which helps support the site. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.

Delivery is free for orders over £20.00. For more information about the VR Kit, view our existing announcement post.

Will you be pre-ordering the VR Kit online? Are you planning to purchase the starter kit or the full package? Tell us down in the comments.

If you’ve been eager to take to the skies on the Switch, Ultrawings by Bit Planet Games might be worth keeping an eye on. The game is described as an open-world aerial-themed flight game and might even remind you of a certain Nintendo series we haven’t seen since the start of the 3DS generation.

In Ultrawings, you’ll pilot various aircraft while completing challenges on an island-themed world. This includes popping balloons, performing smooth landings, taking photos and participating in thrilling air races. Participating in these events will unlock in-game money, allowing you to gain access to more airports and aircraft.

This single-player flight experience arrives on the Nintendo Switch later on 28th March and will be available for $19.99. Interestingly, the PlayStation 4 and Steam version of the game has been designed for use with a VR headset. Check out an existing trailer of the game below:

Is this a game you would be interested in trying out? Tell us in the comments.

In this 2017 GDC talk, Volition’s Michael Jungbluth goes in-depth on every aspect of the animation process for Agents of Mayem.

From art to tech and design, Jungbluth discusses how the studio’s approach on how to create and animate an appealing character in a more holistic manner.

It was an insightful talk that’s definitely still worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Have you ever wanted to make your own game? Well you’re in luck this weekend! Get GameGuru for FREE starting now through Sunday at 11:59PM Pacific Time. That’s right, get GameGuru this weekend and it’s yours to keep forever!

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or use GameGuru. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

The Warframe dev team, always passionately intent on keeping its game interesting and ever-changing, has introduced something it’s never done. We’re delivering a new way to earn rewards while playing Warframe with a single, powerful broadcast.

If you have been playing over the last week or two, you may have heard a new voice interspersed between the mix of Lotus and Ordis chatter in your Orbiter. That smooth, convincing voice that suddenly appears out of nowhere? That’s Nora Night, the rogue host who runs the pirate radio broadcast, “Nightwave”.

“Hey there, Dreamers. You hearin’ me? I know you are. No need to say anythin’. A hand in yours, a voice for the speechless, a bedtime story for the sleepless. The name’s Nora Night, and I got somethin’ to say, sweet things. Nightwave is coming.” — Nora Night

Nora is the eyes and ears of the Origin System and her anti-authority voice and conscience-searing messages aren’t just talk. She’s offering new challenges, new stories to unravel, and unlockable time-limited exclusive rewards, be they cosmetic or power-based. Last week, playable on Xbox One (among other platforms), we introduced the first of many broadcasts with “Nightwave: Series 1 — The Wolf of Saturn Six”. In this debut Series, a savage and unruly convict has escaped from captivity. Now he’s out there, freely prowling the Origin System. Mark the frequency, Tenno — this is one story you need to hear.

In each Nightwave Series, you’ll earn Standing by completing daily and weekly Acts with Nora to rise through the Reward Tiers and unlock power items, exclusive cosmetics or currency called Wolf Cred. Each tier contains unique, never-offered-before rewards and we strongly encourage you to unlock all 30 tiers before each series ends, so you don’t miss out!

This is an amazing time to log into Warframe because of the availability of these exclusive rewards. They include highly sought-after Power items such as a Warframe slot, Weapon slots, Umbra Forma, Forma Bundles, Orokin Catalysts, and exclusive Cosmetics, like Armor, Sigils, a Syandana, and more.

Some of the unique rewards available in “The Wolf of Saturn Six” include:

• Saturn Six Armor Bundle (Tier 30): The signature battle armor of the only lunatic fearsome enough to have escaped the Saturn Six Max-Pen.
• Umbra Forma (Tier 29): Applies the Umbra polarity to any Warframe or Weapon.
• Wolf Howl Emote (Tier 26): Summon the pack with this exclusive emote.
• Two Weapon Slots (Tier 4): Adds two weapon Inventory slots.

For those wondering about the previous Alert System, by visiting the Nightwave Cred Offerings, you can still acquire the former Alert System Rewards you want the most! Examples here include Nitain Extract, Weapon and Helmet Blueprints, Catalysts, Reactors and rare Aura Mods. Earn up to 300 Wolf Cred by completing daily and weekly Acts, and even more with Prestige once you rise past Tier 30! Wolf Cred must be redeemed before the Series is over or sold for credits, so use them before the frequency is lost.

Nightwave: Series 1 is really just the tip of the iceberg. We think you’re going to love it — we hope you try it, and we’d love to hear what you think! Talk to us on our forums, and check in with us on our various Twitch streams. If you like Nightwave, we have plenty more characters, events and rewards coming this year. Nora is just getting started!

“An echo. From long ago: ‘For ten years I have been polishing this sword. It’s frosty edge has never been put to the test. Now, I am holding it and showing it to you, sir: Is there anyone suffering from injustice?’ Keep livin’, Dreamers.” — Nora Night

Ikora Rey stepped into Lab 3, followed by Ophiuchus. “If that idiot thinks we don’t recognize him—”

“It would be easy to empty a shotgun in his back and wait for his Ghost to show up,” Aunor interrupted. “It must be close by.” She stared hard at an image of Cayde’s final moments.

“We’ve been through this, Aunor,” Ikora said, looking purposefully at Aunor instead of the array of displays and screens. “The Vanguard needs him. How many times have you checked this data?”

“Seventeen. In my off-hours. I needed to know if I could trust the Guardian that let Cayde die.”

Ikora was silent for a moment, then she said, quietly, “Not ‘the’ Guardian. Guardians plural. Zavala and I are just as—”

“Culpable, yes. You didn’t let me finish. We lost Cayde on a random Tuesday. And you all just took that Guardian’s word for it? One who’s had less than a decade of service?” Aunor turned, bathed in the layered light of the holograms. Arc energy hummed in the air around her. The holograms flickered and distorted. “You didn’t think to ask whether it was a lie? You didn’t think it was important to pore over this footage, to double-check every possible angle—“

“We did!” Ikora snapped. Ophiuchus nudged her; she steadied herself. “We have. And we’ve allowed you to look. We gave you Sundance’s shell. You’ve had full access to every report. What’ve you found?”

“Nothing. It’s as your hero surmised. Sundance was murdered by the Barons of the Tangled Shore. They pooled all their resources to craft a single Thorn-like bullet. Had they missed, the last few months would have played out very differently. The Hunters might still have their Vanguard. But… I admit that I see no reason not to believe the official report.”

Ikora nodded. “Most reliable Guardian I know,” she said softly.

“It was the only blemish on that record. I had to look into it.”

Ikora took a breath. “We need you to leave the Drifter alone.”

“You know I have the Vanguard’s best interests in mind. And now that I know our hero can be trusted, maybe I’ve found the help I need.”

“To do what?”

“To save you from yourselves.”

“Aunor…”

“It remains my honor to be your Hidden. But there are lines I will never cross. Not for you, not for the Order. Do you trust me to do my job?”

“Always. I… the Vanguard ask that you do the same.”

“Always.”