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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! We covered a ton of news coming out of the Gamescom conference in Cologne, including the reveal of World of Warcraft’s next expansion. Also, a composer might have accidentally revealed a Final Fantasy XII remaster, and we compared all of the current toys-to-life game franchises.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The best nuggets from a summer of game leader interviews
- Yoshi’s Island is 20 years old today and remains a 2D masterpiece
- Predicting World of Warcraft’s next expansion (hint: it involves Night Elves)
- Skylanders vs. Amiibo vs. Disney Infinity vs. Lego Dimensions: The state of toys-to-life games
- The ridiculous design behind a key scene in Life Is Strange
- Konami’s management in Japan depicted as Orwellian — but how unique is it?
News
- Xbox One NFL app gets Next Generation Stats; Surface Pro 3 coming to teams
- Square Enix only published Life is Strange after a failed pitch for another game
- Nvidia beats Wall Street Q2 earnings expectations thanks to high-end graphics growth
- China flexes its muscle in gaming as 272,900 people flock to ChinaJoy
- Unity CEO: Virtual reality hinges on your PC’s specs, not the headset
- World of Warcraft’s new Legion expansion enters beta testing later this year
- Splatoon gets a new social website to arrange battles and track progress
- Tencent-, Line-backed studio is bringing a top-5 ranked role-playing game from South Korea to the West
- id Software opens new German game studio
- Warner Bros. game revenue rises 135% in Q2
- Virtual reality will make Burning Man even trippier — if you Kickstart this project
- Mafia III is coming in 2016 and takes place in New Orleans
- Heroes of the Storm announces new characters: Warcraft’s Rexxar and StarCraft’s Artanis
- Hearthstone adding better rewards for Ranked players and swipes at aggressive decks with Joust
- Sword Coast Legends pushes back its D&D role-playing release to September 29
- Mega Man Legacy Collection comes out digitally on August 25 — and it’s less than the boxed version
- The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes gets an October 23 release date
- Star Wars Battlefront features ‘fighter squadron’ combat
- EA’s weird shooter Garden Warfare 2 will offer solo play and Grass Effect character
- Seagate launches a 2-terabyte game drive for Xbox consoles
- EA unveils The Sims 4 Get Together expansion pack
- EA’s Mirror’s Edge Catalyst shows how Faith became a hero
- Need for Speed challenges players to become racing icons
- Skylanders Superchargers may have its killer app: online multiplayer kart racing
- Corsair’s new gaming hardware just blasted my face with colors and a 17-button mouse
- Hearthstone, Call of Duty lead Activision to $611M in digital revenues last quarter
- StarCraft II expansion confirmed for 2015 launch
- Disney’s interactive division sees revenue drop due to slowing Disney Infinity sales
- World of Warcraft monthly subscribers fall to 5.6M, its lowest level since 2005
- Activision Blizzard beats Wall Street’s expectations for Q2 2015
- DDoS attack forces Valve to pause The International Dota 2 tournament
- Facebook kills proposed user data policy after game and app publishers panicked
- Destiny is replacing Peter Dinklage’s Ghost voice with Nolan North
- Xbox at Gamescom: Watch all the trailers right here
- Lara Croft is still badass in Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Halo Wars 2 is real — and Microsoft has Total War developer Creative Assembly making it
- Microsoft’s Forza Motorsport 6 has you racing — and fishtailing — in realistic rain
- Windows 10 features come to Xbox One with its redesigned interface in November
- Microsoft pitches Halo 5: Guardians as an esport
- Microsoft debuts its first dragon-fighting scene from Scalebound
- Microsoft shows off first Crackdown 3 gameplay
- Microsoft says long-awaited Quantum Break is coming April 5, 2016
- Rocket League is ‘100%’ coming to other platforms
- Warner Bros. debuts new Mad Max video for Gamescom
- Game Developers Conference is taking submissions for panels, lectures, and more for 2016
- Paladins is Smite maker Hi-Rez Studios’ take on Team Fortress 2 — with cards instead of hats
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Reckoning DLC debuts tomorrow
- TheScore expands its Dota 2 esports coverage in time for The International tournament
- ChinaJoy in pictures: A sexy, crazy, and uniquely Chinese gaming trade show
- Former Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei hired as consultant for Chinese game developer Youzu
- Autodesk’s Stingray may be a big threat to Unity and Unreal in the game-engine wars
- Big developers betting on third-party engines for triple-A games
- Distant Worlds conductor clarifies Final Fantasy XII remake statement
- Twitch wants to reach gamers everywhere — and will livestream from several global gaming events
- Final Fantasy XII remake or remaster is coming, according to Distant Worlds symphony conductor
Mobile and social
- Games network WildTangent will let you reserve a not-yet-released app
- Zynga’s mobile slots games see 274% growth — with Willy Wonka coming soon
- Slot jackpots help Zynga beat earnings guidance for second quarter
- Zynga adds former EA exec Frank Gibeau to its board
- Hall of Fame NFL QB Joe Montana highlights $1.5M raise for social sports app GameOn
- Tapjoy hits its billionth app install
- Lithuania’s Realore launches mobile strategy sim game Divine Academy
- Angry Birds 2 hits 20M downloads in its first week
- Swrve’s predictive marketing boosts mobile gaming play by 28%
- Kano Summer Camp gets kids coding with art — without leaving the house
- Glu to make a Nicki Minaj mobile game
- The dos & don’ts for in-game video advertising
- Dutch mobile marketing firm iQU acquires TinyLoot and Target Gamers
- Eve developer reveals its new Samsung Gear VR game: Gunjack
- New brain-training game could help schizophrenia sufferers
Previews and interviews
- Disney Infinity lets Star Wars fans catapult Ewoks
- Stellaris is Paradox’s first grand strategy foray into the stars
- Lego Dimensions stands out from Disney Infinity, Skylanders with 14 massive open worlds
- Submerged lets you explore a captivating waterlogged city
- Perfect World CEO still believes game consoles can succeed in China
- Epic’s graphics guru Tim Sweeney shares his vision for perfect augmented reality
Reviews and impressions
- Nyko DataBank is a worthwhile accessory — even if you have plenty of PlayStation 4 hard drive space
- Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is more patch than expansion — and not an exciting one, either
- Rare Replay is a great collection that even makes ancient games fun
- Rare Replay: 10 minute impressions of all 30 games
- 5 things you should know about Rare Replay’s multiplayer, framerate, and more