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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup!
We had a lot of news out of Nintendo, but we were also busy playing Hearthstone’s new expansion, Whispers of the Old Gods. We also looked at a virtual reality roller coaster. So, you know, it was a good week.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: How to make VR survive long enough to become a boom
- Will Samsung’s virtual reality rollercoaster make you sick?
- You can finally own your own Wind Waker baton from The Legend of Zelda
- Everything you want to know about GamesBeat Summit 2016
- Hearthstone: Whispers of the Old Gods first impressions — we love Standard
- Rocket League Hoops is exciting as hell
- Watch 8 minutes of Pokémon Go’s augmented reality gameplay in action
- This insane Super Mario Maker player conquers one of the toughest stages yet
- GamesBeat Summit will explore how developers can manage crunch
- Super Mario RPG was originally a lot more like Final Fantasy
- Unity’s David Helgason on the open-versus-closed Windows debate
- How esports can learn from its traditional sports teams and broadcasters
News
- Sony returns to profit, but slipping PlayStation hardware revenues beg for the rumored Neo
- Tera players can now dress like Hello Kitty fanatics
- SpaceVR raises $1.25M to send VR camera satellite into orbit
- Samsung goes beyond hardware to invest in VR software
- The Division earned $109M from digital game sales in March
- 1 in 10 Western consumers are considering buying a VR product in the next 6 months
- Unity Q1 report: 220,000 games, 4.2B installs on 1.7B devices
- Brightlocker is a ‘crowd publisher’ that wants to turn your ideas into real games
- Mass Effect attraction hits California’s Great America amusement park this summer
- Vreal can teleport you into a VR game so you can be a spectator
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End stolen in the U.K. — Sony warns to beware spoilers
- Nintendo will have only one playable game at E3 2016: Zelda for Wii U (not even the NX version)
- Without Zelda, Wii U’s 2016 looks bleak — and Nintendo’s outlook suggests it’ll stay that way
- Nintendo by the numbers: 58.5M 3DS handhelds and 12.8M Wii U consoles sold to date
- Nintendo earnings plunge 60 percent in fiscal year as it preps new hardware
- Nintendo delays Zelda Wii U to 2017 and confirms NX version
- Nintendo NX confirmed for March 2017 release
- Minecraft fan site Lifeboat hacked: 7M accounts exposed
- Vive manufacturer HTC creates $100M fund for virtual reality startups
- Fallout 4 finally gets full modding support (and horse armor!) on PC
- Hearthstone servers down for some as new Whispers of the Old Gods expansion goes live
- Hearthstone’s Whispers of the Old Gods expansion is live
- Blizzard explains why it shut down a fan-made, classic World of Warcraft server
- Linden Lab wants users to create social experiences in virtual reality world
- AMD’s Radeon Pro Duo graphics card is ready for virtual reality
- Watch Logitech turn 160 keyboards into a giant screen
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid’s author turns his kid-entertainment know-how into StoryArc Media
- Assassin’s Creed producer gets his 1666 game back from Ubisoft
- Doom creators John Romero and Adrian Carmack to make shooter Blackroom
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End newest trailer gets the adventurer’s blood pumping
- ESL says it still wants to work with YouPorn’s esports team
Mobile and social
- Addictive mobile game Color Switch tops 75M downloads in three months
- With patience, I defeated Supercell’s monetization strategy in Clash Royale
- Google Play now labels Android apps and games containing ads
- Atari founder Nolan Bushnell teams up with Spil Games to make mobile games
- Rovio to distribute a billion Angry Birds augmented reality ‘BirdCodes’ in huge marketing campaign
- Angry Birds Action! pinball-inspired mobile game is just a piece of Rovio’s giant transmedia strategy
- Marvel Puzzle Quest is getting in on the Civil War (the superhero one, not the U.S. one)
- Samsung predicts mobile gaming performance will surpass PS4 by 2020
- Minecraft enters virtual reality on Samsung’s Gear VR headset
- Rocket Lolly throws switch on Rocky Horror Show mobile game Kickstarter
- Nintendo is bringing Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem to mobile
- Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes mobile game gets guilds and raids in new update
- Kamcord raises $10M and wants to livestream your Tinder sessions
- Berlin’s TreasureHunt debuts zany Boomie Blast arcade mobile game
- Supercell stakes a beachhead in the mobile gaming clash in Iran