Just a quick report on Animal Crossing: New Horizon's 3.0 update. I feel like enough time has passed since release for me to enjoy the game again with fresh eyes, and I've started a new island. It's still a fantastic game.

But the Mouse Mode controls added to the AU$8 Nintendo Switch 2 edition of the game are sadly quite bad.

As we already know, the Switch 2 upgrade increased the resolution of the game, but not the framerate. In-game this isn't exactly terrible, and I'm so used to 30 frames-per-second that I don't even really notice it.

But when trying to design with the Nintendo Switch 2's unique mouse controls there are serious issues with input-latency and just general sluggishness of 30fps. It really feels awful.

Even just this image I tried of a sad face was genuinely challenging, which is a huge shame. It's also a shame that the Custom Design Pro Editor can't just bypass the 30fps game cap and run at 60fps, as it is a fullscreen in-game design tool and could theoretically run at the higher framerate without requiring a lot of work.

External mouses are also not supported in my experience, despite pre-release reports on the Nintendo Switch 2 indicating that Mouse Mode would support a USB mouse.

Still, New Horizons is a nice place to be, especially right now.

Bungie and Sony have announced that upcoming title Marathon has a release date. The game is arriving March 5, 2026, alongside a Limited Edition DualSense controller.

In a generation of just plain boring Limited Editions, the Marathon controller actually looks nice and unique. Lets hope the game is equally special and not another live-service PlayStation dud. Eat your heart out The Last Of Us: Factions (which was cancelled) and Concord (which was shut down just weeks after its launch).

Great video from The Game Business with interviews with the people behind the PlayStation 1's launch in Europe. The interviews include:

former bosses Chris Deering and Jim Ryan, developers Martin Alltimes and Juan Montes, PR and marketing veterans Glen O’Connell, Alan Welsman and Geoff Glendenning, and Namco’s Jackie Plumeridge.

I especially love the anecdote from Chris Deering about advertising the PlayStation brand at Football games, which you can see in this stock photo here. And how important it was being on the ground to market the console.

Update 26/08/2025: Demonschool has been delayed.

The hype around Hollow Knight: Silksong is unquestionable. Releasing September 4, the follow-up to Hollow Knight is coming 7 years after it was originally announced.

I genuinely can't wait - and it might be my most anticipated game of the year full stop. Which is saying a lot when you consider we had a new Mario Kart and full 3D Donkey Kong game.

So spare a thought for any games releasing around the same time. One game I feel the most for is Demonschool - a "new-style tactics RPG" that shows inspiration from Persona, while also sporting a really unique look and feel.

At least Demonschool will get a mini head start. Also Team Cherry aren't giving out review codes prior to release either, which might give Demonschool a bit more attention in the gaming press.

September will also see Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots on September 5th, Baby Steps from Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch and Bennett Foddy on September 8th, and Borderlands 4 on September 12th.

In a post on Twitter the company said:

"The Epic Games Store and Fortnite will come to iOS in Australia! An Australian court just found that Apple and Google abuse their control over app distribution and in-app payments to limit competition. There are 2,000+ pages of findings that we’ll need to dig into to fully understand the details. This is a WIN for developers and consumers in Australia!"

Following approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Apple has enabled sleep apnea detection notifications for some devices. The feature is supported by the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10 and Ultra 2.

From Apple's support document:

If over a 30-day period you receive more frequent elevated breathing disturbances, you receive a notification of possible sleep apnea.

In another edition of 'The Emperor's New Clothes' in Silicon Valley, today we have a new app from genius founder Jack Dorsey.

Following on from Bitchat - which uses Bluetooth to allow for close-proximity chatrooms, Dorsey has now invented a "Sun Day Tracker" app.

From The Verge:

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has released a new app that tracks your sun exposure and vitamin D levels.

[...]

You can detail your skin type and clothing level, then manually toggle when you’re in and out of the sun and the app will track your rough vitamin D levels for the day, along with how long you can be in direct sunlight without burning.

In the same way that I don't understand AI music (we already have so much real music that it's impossible to listen to it all), now we have vibe-coded apps that...are just apps with extremely limited utility. If you have to manually toggle it every time you go outside, and then trust that the calculations are correct, how accurate could this possibly be?

Maybe it's just the Southern Hemisphere Winter getting to me.