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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! We hope that you had as interesting a week as we did. Former Microsoft employee Alex St. John caused a lot of outrage with his guest story defending crunch time in gaming, a view that indie developer Rami Ismail blasted in a response. You can catch up with all of that below.
Elsewhere, we reviewed two Star Fox games, production ended on the Xbox 360, and Hearthstone’s next expansion got a release date and new details.
Happy reading, and enjoy your weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Saying so long to the Xbox 360 after a decade
- Why Sony needs the PlayStation 4 ‘Neo’ — even if you hate it
- How Hearthstone’s nerfs transform the world’s biggest digital card game
- Lucky’s Tale creator Paul Bettner to speak on VR at GamesBeat Summit
- How latency is killing online gaming
- Gears of War 4 beta tips for new and veteran players
- Mario Party has caused a surprising amount of controversy
- Indie developer Rami Ismail responds to critic of work-life balance in game industry (guest)
- Game developers must avoid the ‘wage-slave’ attitude (guest)
News
- Ark: Survival of the Fittest brings dinosaur-based esports to PlayStation 4
- Xbox One is selling better, but lower price drags down Microsoft’s revenues
- Microsoft reports $22.1 billion in Q3 2016 revenue, cloud business passes $10 billion annual run rate
- TBS reveals 24 teams for its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league
- Hearthstone wants to give players free Whispers of the Old Gods card packs
- Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst’s release date parkours from May 24 to June 7
- Video games will become a $99.6B industry this year as mobile overtakes consoles and PCs
- The Elder Scrolls: Legends starts its closed beta and sure looks like Hearthstone
- Zengaming gets $2.8M in funding to expand its social network for the esports business
- Dunks come to Rocket League next week with Hoops update
- How European game developers view unpaid ‘crunch,’ diversity, and VR
- Blizzard reveals Hearthstone’s upcoming card nerfs
- Microsoft is ending Xbox 360 production more than 10 years after its debut
- Oculus Rift delays are hurting VR spending, but it’s not a long-term problem
- Metroid Prime: Federation Force gets an August 19 release date
- The Foo Show is already exploring the future of virtual media
- Hearthstone’s Whispers of the Old Gods expansion launches April 26
- Pyre is the next gorgeous game from Bastion, Transistor developer
- Mafia III gets an October 7 release date
- VR Bangers and AuraVisor to offer adult virtual reality content in hotel rooms
- Oculus Rift update finally lets you install games to a different drive
- Atari’s ‘Haunted House’ trademark dispute to go in front of regulators this week
- World of Warcraft: Legion expansion launches August 30
- Dark Souls III becomes Bandai Namco America’s fastest-selling game
- Doom’s open beta extended an extra day
- Insomniac Games announes two new virtual reality projects for Oculus Rift
- GameStop pushes into game publishing with launch of GameTrust label
Mobile and social
- Call of Duty: Heroes hits 30M downloads
- Fallout Shelter update streamlines how you manage your postapocalyptic dwelling
- Crossy Road gets party-mode multiplayer on Android
- Handy Games CEO Chris Kassulke on crunch, VR, and mobile gaming
- India’s Nazara Games invests in U.K. mobile studio Mastermind Sports
- Game deals rebounded in Q1, but mobile game investments plunged
- DeNA West is bringing its VR game Protocol Zero to more platforms with Sidekick’s help
- Gazillion teams up with Ubitus to take Marvel Heroes 2016 to Asia
- How to make your mobile gaming marketing campaign burst a success
- Nintendo’s Miitomo is beating Facebook at gathering personal data
- Former Kabam COO Chris Carvalho carves a niche as a game startup adviser
- China overtakes Japan for No. 2 in iOS app revenue
- Why Nintendo’s Miitomo should frighten every other mobile game publisher
Reviews, previews, and interviews
- Star Fox Zero is a unique — but short — shooter that’s better because of the Wii U
- Star Fox: Guard is a cute bonus twist on tower defense that gets old quick
- Five years in the making, Bolt Riley reggae adventure game debuts
- Quantum Break’s film composer on writing music for a show that changes
- Hitman: Episode 2 continues a deadly world tour on Italy’s Amalfi Coast
- Razer Ripsaw is excellent for capturing beautiful PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U footage