Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Fire Emblem: Fates is a hit, we learn more about the Iron Maiden mobile game, and Nintendo cuts its 2016 earnings guidance.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Nine memorable moments from gaming’s elite DICE Summit
- How to find Far Cry: Primal’s secret homage to Blood Dragon
News
- Sun and Moon are Pokémon’s next games — coming this holiday
- Nintendo cuts 2016 earnings guidance and says it will sell 1M fewer 3DSes than predicted
- Capcom boosts its rerelease strategy with Resident Evil 4, RE5, and RE6 for PS4 and Xbox One
- Bandai Namco brings permadeath dungeon-crawler Necropolis to consoles
- Naughty Dog and Sony issue a new Uncharted 4 trailer without Ubisoft’s imagery
- After spending $32M, World of Tanks developer Wargaming is still figuring out esports
- Fire Emblem: Fates’ sales cement Nintendo’s strategy series as a retail hit in the West
- Uncharted 4’s newest trailer underscores the importance of story [update]
- AMD partners with Stardock to create awesome graphics for Ashes of the Singularity
- Bank Limit takes F-Zero and adds VR and combat, debuts at Oculus Rift’s launch
- Fueled by Twitch, Punch Club surpasses $2M in sales and preps The Dark Fist expansion
- UC Davis uses a game to chart its future
- Borderlands headlines free Xbox Live Games with Gold for March
- Fallout 4 mod support hits PC in April, Xbox One in May, & PlayStation 4 in June
- Interabang starts Fig crowdfunding campaign for Jay and Silent Bob video game
- Neverwinter prepares to unleashes its next expansion … and Orcus
- Nerf herding — Star Wars: Battlefront gets Twilight Hoth map and more in February update
- HoloLens video demonstrates Windows 10’s augmented reality user interface
- Xbox Live down again as persistent troubles haunt the Xbox One (update)
- Microsoft will show app reviews from some Insiders in the Windows Store
- Final Fantasy creator’s Mistwalker studio teams up with Bravely Default maker Silicon Studio
- How Fallout 4’s next update changes the game — and how to get it now
- The Division’s beta attracted 6.4 million players
- Halo World Championship’s $2.5M prize pool is the largest in esports shooter history
- What Stan Lee and Steve Wozniak are brewing for their 1st Silicon Valley Comic Con
- Twitch competitor DingIt rounds up 20M monthly viewers
- Facebook’s Zuckerberg appears at Samsung event to talk VR, confirms Minecraft is coming to Oculus
- HTC Vive will cost $799, preorder on February 29 and ships in early April (updated)
Mobile and social
- Niantic raises $5 million to forge ahead with Pokémon Go
- Pac-Man: Puzzle Tour is another Candy Crush clone
- Mobile virtual reality on track to hit $861M in revenues this year
- mNectar’s new Spectra streaming network turns ads into playable games
- Virtual reality hype runs amok at MWC 2016, as mobile industry crowds onto bandwagon
- Finland’s PlayRaven launches Robocide ‘micro real-time strategy’ mobile game
- Kendall & Kylie game takes Glu Mobile to the top 10 again after poor Katy Perry launch
- FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs catches the express train to India to make mobile games
- Why positional tracking for mobile virtual reality is so damn hard
- Saudi Arabia’s mobile-gaming whales want what’s hot — even if it’s in another language
- RevTwo lets you call for help when you’re having an app fail
- Zynga puts its San Francisco headquarters up for sale
- Activision Blizzard adds a few hundred million users as it closes $5.9B King acquisition
- Hollywood backs Fifth Journey to take movie-licensed games to China
- Oculus’s Gear VR boss: Samsung Galaxy S7 beats the S7 Edge for virtual reality
- App monetization and distribution platform Appnext grew revenue 345% in 2015
- Kabam lays off 8% as it focuses on massively multiplayer mobile hits like Marvel: Contest of Champions
- Daily fantasy sports outlook: No profits, lots of uncertainty, and dying unicorns
- Facebook says people have watched 1 million hours of video with Samsung Gear VR, forms Social VR team
- Samsung arms every Unpacked attendee with Gear VR to watch its press conference
- Should Bethesda’s Todd Howard bet on mobile or console Fallout games?
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Unicorn story: How this young woman went from student to indie game studio chief
- Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast turns iconic metal band’s mascot into a mobile gaming star
- How Bruce Shelley brought a board gamer’s view into designing Civilization
- Warren Spector wants to mine new ’emergent gameplay’ from System Shock’s nostalgia
- Far Cry: Primal rocks the Stone Age but feels stale