Join independent journalists and industry decision-makers at GamesBeat NEXT, returning to San Francisco November 2–3. The event brings together 500 executives, founders, investors and tech leaders shaping the $200 billion interactive economy for candid discussions on gaming, entertainment, technology and AI, plus executive networking and opportunities to build partnerships and close major deals.
Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we have tons of coverage out of this year’s DICE 2016 summit, including stories on about the now Konami-free Hideo Kojima. Also, we reviewed Fire Emblem: Fates, and Bethesda reveals it’s working on three new games.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend.
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The joy of covering video games for 25 years
- HTC Vive opens for preorder on February 29, ships early April
- Fire Emblem makes you feel like a monster for choosing Conquest over Birthright
- 5 Fire Emblem: Fates tips to prepare you for a three-game adventure
- Blizzard’s 25 years built bonds and friendships as well as iconic games
- Here’s a Street Fighter V PC vs. PlayStation 4 graphics comparison
- The game industry has an abundance of talent in 2016
- Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett paves a new way for female heroes
DICE 2016
- Game of the Year goes to post-apocalypse game Fallout 4
- Hideo Kojima gets Hall of Fame honors from the video game industry
- Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata gets posthumous lifetime achievement award from gaming peers
- Hideo Kojima: ‘I feel extremely free right now. I’m doing exactly what I want to do’
- Guillermo Del Toro: Games are ‘only limited by the bastards with money’
- Fallout 4 maker Bethesda is working on 3 new games
- Tomb Raider’s writer shows the rise of storytelling’s importance in gaming
- Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1 billion hours played, and 66 versions
- How Ubisoft visits real places to make its open-world games like The Division
- Penn Jillete: ‘If you liked rock ‘n’ roll in 1971, you have to love video games today’
News
- Minecraft’s first big update of the year comes to PC and Pocket Edition
- Nimble Collective raises $8.5M for cloud-based animation community
- TwitchCon 2016 moves to Comic-Con’s home: San Diego
- Virtual reality hype helps Nvidia sell more graphics chips for high-end PCs
- PC market is slowing, but Nvidia beats results as it expands to new platforms
- System Shock revival lures Warren Spector away from academia and back to games
- Intel continues to back gender diversity in gaming industry by promoting new program
- Leap Motion introduces amazing Orion hand-tracking for virtual reality
- Switzerland’s MindMaze raises $100M in funding for VR for stroke victims
- After the gold rush, FunPlus is starting a $50M game investment fund
- Game developers bet mobile virtual reality has mass-market appeal
- Industrial Light and Magic is talking VR — and likely Star Wars — at Game Developers Conference
- Minecraft creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson’s Game Developers Conference honor cements his legacy
- Fallout 4’s DLC has you building robots, capturing creatures for Pokémon-style pit fights
- U.S. game industry hits $23.5B in 2015 — with software revenue up 7% to $16.5B
- You can target enemies in Ubisoft’s The Division using Tobii’s eye-tracking technology
- Sinclair ZX Spectrum targets retro fans — and U.S. gamers — with a new handheld console
- RankR gives esports a single hub for news, rankings, and tournaments
Mobile and social
- Facebook named undisputed leader in mobile advertising for app developers
- Fiksu lets marketers target its audience of 3 billion mobile devices
- InnoGames’ mobile stable sees 100% growth in 2015 thanks to Forge of Empires
- Google Play Games drops Google+ integration
- The Apple TV now lets you watch previews of apps before you download
- Kendall and Kylie Jenner join Kim Kardashian in Glu’s mobile game celeb stable
- Sign up now for Nintendo’s first mobile game, Miitomo
- Rocky Horror Show fans will get their own ‘Touch Me’ mobile game
- Mobile devices will be more powerful than PlayStation 4, Xbox One in 2017, ARM forecasts (update)
- The International Mobile Game Awards announces its nominees for 2016
- Players who buy once are six times more likely to buy again in mobile games
- Sony’s GSN Games acquires rival U.K. social casino slots studio Plumbee
- Why Zynga founder Mark Pincus is confident about the former juggernaut’s turnaround
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Fire Emblem: Fates’ branching paths help it escape Awakening’s shadow
- Golfstream turns golf into a hilarious augmented reality sport
- Street Fighter V shows how Capcom wants to make fighting games — and players — better
- Civilization’s father, Sid Meier, shares 25 years of insights on his beloved series