Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we got our hands on Arms, Nintendo’s upcoming fighting game for the Switch. Also, 2K has a new president, and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig is getting involved with an online game.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Don’t panic. E3 will be full of fun, not FUD
- AR/VR Weekly: Buying stuff in VR without facing … reality
- What should you expect from Nintendo at E3 2017? GamesBeat Decides
- Could indie dev Yager paint a big-ass spaceship on … the Berlin Wall?
News
- Hitman’s June content update could be its last
- The NPD Group: Grand Theft Auto V is the best-selling game in the U.S. since it’s been tracking
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War delayed to October 10
- Geoff Keighley and YouTube ink multi-year deal for expanded E3 coverage
- Innervate brings mobile-style analytics to Steam with Red Shell
- Seagate targets 4-terabyte storage drive at Xbox Game Pass members
- Kerbal Space Program has a new owner: Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two
- Edgybees mashes up video games and real drones for a futuristic new racer
- Hunt: Showdown is Crytek’s new multiplayer game, and it’s going to E3 in June
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker launches $500,000 Kickstarter for extra content, not the base game (update)
- Overwatch’s new map colonizes the moon
- Law professor Lawrence Lessig: Vast online games need a political structure
- Obsidian’s Pathfinder Adventures is the latest mobile game to journey to PC
- Vuforia’s Project Chalk lets people communicate in augmented reality
- Drifter Entertainment unveils fast-action sci-fi shooter Gunheart for VR
- Giant game publisher 2K appoints company insitution David Ismailer as its new president
- NCSoft takes on League of Legends with action MOBA Master X Master
- Appy Pie launches its VR and AR app builder for startups and small businesses
- ReadyUp unveils platform for managing esports teams
- MindCotine uses VR to help you kick the smoking habit
- Aceable teaches teens how to drive in VR
- Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig will design the politics in online game Seed
- SoundCloud’s first game console app arrives on Xbox One
- AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper with 2 Radeon Vega GPUs runs Prey at 4K
- AMD shows rising support for Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics
- Star Trek: Bridge Crew now comes with every HTC Vive VR headset
- Mixer’s co-op streaming is for the pros, not dabblers like me
- Sega Europe’s partnership with Two Point Studios is another sign of its PC growth
- Keystone Publishing pieces together a partnership with Devil’s Peek’s new puzzle game
- Longtime GDC boss Meggan Scavio says so long
- Sonic Mania dashes onto consoles and PC on August 15
- How Nvidia’s Max-Q delivers 3 times the performance in a much thinner laptop
- Attention livestreamers: TwitchCon tickets are now on sale
- Roll20 sponsors Team 8, a top 10 Heroes of the Storm squad
- Lost Sphear is a new retro Square Enix role-playing game from the I Am Setsuna team
- Nvidia releases a recipe to make GPU computing ubiquitous in data centers
- Nvidia’s Max-Q tech can make gaming laptops as thin as a MacBook Air
- ARM wants to boost AI performance by 50X over 5 years
Mobile and social
- Sega’s new Crazy Taxi mobile game: Less driving, more tapping
- ManoMotion uses a single smartphone camera to capture your hand gestures for virtual reality
- Pollen VC: 4,648 mobile app developers made over $1 million in 2016
- Atomico: Europeans are seizing share in fast-growing China mobile game market
- Zombie Gunship Survival bags 2 million downloads 1 week after launch
- Mobile advertisers are falling in love with ‘playable ads’
- Miso Happy augmented reality app sticks your face on AR cartoons
- Gamevice Inc. raised $12.5 million with its mobile controller
- Skillz takes Capcom’s Street Fighter into mobile esports for prizes
- Vikings pillaged TV ratings — now it’s going to plunder mobile gaming
- Mobile games publisher GameMine raises $20 million to expand globally
- Top-downloaded games beat top-grossing ones on retention
Reviews, previews, and interviews
- Total War: Warhammer II designer promises war across four continents
- Sega’s Creative Asssembly unveils a massive new world for Total War: Warhammer II
- Extinction is a game brave enough to mash up ‘Attack on Titan’ and ‘Shrek’
- Qbics Paint for Nintendo Switch will let you sculpt with the touchscreen
- Only Nintendo could give an idea like Arms some legs
- Star Trek: Bridge Crew’s solo campaign is like posing mannequins in your basement
- 505’s Last Day of June will take gamers on an emotional journey
- Last Day of June asks, ‘What would you do to save the one you love?’