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Welcome to the first weekly roundup of the new year! This time, we kept up with the craziness of Lizard Squad and its attacks on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. We also finished our end-of-the-year coverage for 2014.
You’ll find all of that and more below. Happy New Year, everyone!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: CES will explore new platforms and paths for gaming
- Read+Watch+Listen: Bonus material for Dragon Age: Inquisition fans
- Minecraft meets the ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ trailer
- Halo 5’s beta is going well — but that doesn’t fix Master Chief Collection
- The fortunes of 4 British startups in 2014
Best and worst of 2014
- GamesBeat’s best and worst of 2014 collection
- Best of 2014: Top gaming tech of the year — with some for 2015
- Worst of 2014: 5 trends that tried to spoil gaming
- Best of 2014: The year’s most memorable game trailers
- The best games of 2014 (GamesBeat staff picks)
- Dragon Age: Inquisition is GamesBeat’s 2014 Game of the Year
- The video game stories that got people talking in 2014
News
- Osterhout Design Group packs a ton of cool tech into next-generation augmented-reality smartglasses
- Someone beat Ocarina of Time in 18 minutes and 7 seconds, earns new record
- Here’s how Sony is going to make up for the PSN outage
- FIFA 15, Call of Duty are top-selling games in U.K. for 2014
- Xbox Live party chat and friends list down on Xbox One for many gamers
- The Pirate Bay is down — but that’s not helping PC game sales
- PSN attack fallout: Alleged Lizard Squad member arrested in the U.K.
- Don’t expect to hear much on Steam Machines at CES 2015
- The reason your League of Legends’ ping is high: Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T
- GamesBeat welcomes Dale North as senior editor, Mike Minotti as community manager
- Why PSN went down: Lizard Squad’s capabilities ‘far exceed typical DDoS groups’
- Yahoo pulls the last of its in-house ‘Classic’ games: Poker, Pool, and Bingo
- Someone apparently called ‘911’ about the PSN outage
- LG shows off a gaming monitor with ultra-wide screen
- Prices for rare Nintendo Amiibo figures are starting to skyrocket
- FBI confirms: Lizard Squad under investigation for PSN, Xbox Live attacks
- Porn, sports, and gambling: Adult entertainment company Vivid teams up with DraftDay owner for daily fantasy sports
- Microsoft retiring original Kinect for Windows sensor in 2015
- Origin accounts getting ‘hacked’ as gamers find fraudulent purchases
- Lizard Squad launches DDoS tool that lets anyone take down online services, starting at $6 per month
- After PlayStation Network’s downtime, Sony extends its big game sale
- NVIDIA offers startups a chance to bag $100,000
- Hearthstone is starting to realize its serious earning potential
- PSN down again for many on Monday evening
- Xbox Live founder and XNA language creator exits Microsoft
- PlayStation Network still down for you? This change in your settings may help you get back online
- Lizard Squad says it won’t take down Xbox Live and PlayStation Network anymore, claims it never attacked Tor
- PSN is still down for some as Sony gets service back online
Mobile and social
- NativeX and Loot partner to pay you $1M to promote brands, games on mobile
- Bwin.Party close to selling off money-losing social casino games
- Fiksu: Volume of app downloads skyrocketed in November
- China’s KongZhong invests $16M in Forgame Holdings
- How to install Hearthstone on Android phones (update)
- Tobii touts latest apps for using your eyes to control games and wearables
Previews and interviews