Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Nintendo surprised everyone by announcing a mobile deal with DeNA. It also went ahead and announced the code name of its next system, NX. We also reviewed the newest Battlefield.
You’ll find all of that and more below. Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The intriguing possibilities for Nintendo’s upcoming NX game hardware
- Games, trains, and developers: Second annual Train Jam is all about getting outside the ‘comfort zone’
- Quit a game of Mortal Kombat X and your head explodes
- Kojima’s rumored departure might hurt Metal Gear, Silent Hills, but consoles aren’t Konami’s focus anymore
- Watch the Magic Leap demo Magic Leap didn’t show at TED
- How an 18 year old is convincing the biggest gaming stars on YouTube to make their own video apps
- The future of interactive cinematic VR is coming, and fast
- Nintendo on mobile ‘is an earthquake that will change the entire games industry’
- Nintendo finally awakens to the modern age of games with its DeNA mobile deal
- 5 Nintendo franchises that actually make sense for mobile
- The trailer for Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015 will change your life
News
- Gravity Rush PS4 remaster appears on Korean ratings board and makes a lot of sense
- You can now tip Twitch streamers with Bitcoin
- Following rumors of Kojima’s exit, Konami says it’s looking for developers to make a new Metal Gear series
- Microsoft says free Windows 10 upgrades for pirates will be ‘non-genuine’ and unsupported, stays mum on security
- Star Wars: Battlefront will debut at Star Wars Celebration in April
- GameFounders accelerator helps game startups take wing in both the East and the West
- Final Fantasy XV demo selling on eBay for around $30
- PSN is down for some as the status site was having loading issues (updated)
- Deep learning startup Artomatix wins $100K at Nvidia’s startup contest
- Twitch is down for many streamers and viewers
- Xbox 360 defects still haunt Microsoft — class-action suit moves ahead
- Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview with Start and virtual desktop tweaks, Cortana in 6 new countries
- Nintendo’s stock price jumps another 28% as investment firm raises rating
- Xbox Music now lets you play music stored on OneDrive
- Crowfall soars into Kickstarter’s list of most-funded video games
- Cyberattack fails to ruin Battlefield: Hardline’s launch day
- ‘Abject bollocks’: Tempest 2000 creator calls out Atari for trying to block his followup (update)
- Sony shows off PlayStation Vue cloud TV with local channels in three major markets
- Microsoft reveals Windows 10 hardware requirements and upgrade paths
- Otoy reveals free rendering software for super-fast virtual reality and ‘holographic cinema’
- Nvidia’s Titan X can run Evolve at 74 fps in 4K resolution
- Nvidia’s Titan X graphics chip can render 15M plants in a single scene
- Nintendo’s stock price shot up a massive 27% today thanks to its mobile-gaming plan (update)
- Xbox One begins slinging live TV today with 1-month trial (update)
- You can already preorder Nintendo’s mysterious new NX system
- The Elder Scrolls Online ditches its subscription model today
- Nintendo announces new hardware platform, NX, and deal with DeNA to build Nintendo games for mobile
- PlayStation 4’s online multiplayer is free this weekend
- Utomik jumps into the cloud war with new instantly playable streamed games (exclusive)
Mobile and social
- Glu plays its trump card with sweepstakes to meet … Kim Kardashian
- Sega has 20 new mobile games in the works as its iOS, Android hits bring in the cash
- Nexon Korea moves into the West with Mabinogi Duel mobile game
- Final Fantasy XI is somehow coming to mobile
- Family Guy and Star Trek get mashed up inside a mobile game
- Final Fantasy XI gets one last scenario before shutting down on PS2, Xbox 360
- Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment sees revenue dive 9% and profits fall by half in 2014
- Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto & Montreal: VB’s Roadshow is sharing winners & losers in mobile strategies
- Draft raises $3.5M as daily fantasy sports heats up
- Apple Watch games: New Finnish studio focuses on ‘wearable’ gaming
- Tencent revenues grew 24 percent in Q4, lowest pace in seven years
- Chat app Palringo doubles its revenues thanks to gaming
- Google Play launches a global age-based app rating system based on local standards
- Arkadium’s husband-wife cofounders swap the CEO job (exclusive)
- Germany’s Flaregames uses a rap video to make a splash in Korea with Royal Revolt 2
- Dr. Panda passes 40 million installs, showing that kids in China and the West play the same way
- Mobile marketing: Swrve’s new Converser makes your app chattier … and maybe richer
- How this 14-year-old girl designed, developed, and released her own mobile game
- Vulcun.com bumps its e-sports prize pool to $4M
- Rory McIlroy replaces Tiger Woods as EA’s PGA Tour franchise athlete
- The big problem with retention in mobile gaming
- Lego already has interactive toys — but its next line may challenge Amiibo, Infinity, and Skylanders
Previews and interviews
- Marvel Heroes 2015 creator reflects on rocky launch and the importance of community
- How Pillars of Eternity’s Death Godlike sees through that scab-like stuff over their eyes
- DeNA West CEO: ‘Nintendo became ready to do this. And we were ready the whole time’
- Pillars of Eternity’s ‘ablative armor’ sounds more like ‘Star Trek’ than ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
- EA hijacks traditional shooters with Battlefield: Hardline
- Get ready for the first real intersection of music and virtual reality
- Ripping design answers out of the skull of John Edwards, lead designer of Mortal Kombat X
- Age of Empires devs modernize the RTS genre with faster gameplay — and giant mechs
Reviews
- Tales from the Borderlands Episode 2: Atlas Mugged is all filler, no killer
- Battlefield: Hardline successfully transforms the first-person shooter into an interactive cop show (updated)
- Mario Party 10 makes me wish I was playing the Nintendo 64 original instead
- Final Fantasy Type-0 HD is more Final Fantasy than anything Square Enix’s made in years