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Welcome to another weekly roundup! This time, we covered the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mario is getting his own Puzzle & Dragons, and we laid out the 2015 game release schedule for your convenience.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Oculus VR returns to CES with a towering presence and lots of competition
- Ford CES demo: This race driving simulator could make you carsick
- The 5 most innovative games of the 2015 Independent Games Festival
- The best tech and gaming gear of CES, brought to you by nerd queen Jessica Chobot
- Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition is more of the same for Nintendo
- Watch a pair of speedrunners get engaged live during Awesome Games Done Quick
- GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi looking for something life-changing at CES
- Copyrighting player-generated content in video games
- Grand Theft Auto VI should be in Portland, argues these real estate experts
- SpaceX, Tesla founder Elon Musk loves Kerbal Space Program, Mass Effect, and Civilization
- Hey, game developers: Adding chat can help revenues soar
- 2015 game release schedule

News
- Delaying Battlefield Hardline ‘was the right call,’ says executive producer — promises big improvements
- Batman: Arkham Knight publisher gets new big boss
- Bidding for this ultra-rare NES game is already over $22,000 on eBay
- Baldur’s Gate 1.5? Beamdog talks about its new Infinity Engine game
- Crowfall’s broad strokes sound like an MMO influenced by ‘Game of Thrones’
- Newzoo: Southeast Asia’s billion-dollar gaming market to double by 2017
- Razer plants the flag for open standards for gamers with Forge TV and OSVR (video)
- Sony delays its PlayStation 4 launch in China
- Nintendo, Gungho reveal Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition
- Guild Launch rebrands as Gamer Launch as part of its latest expansion
- Assassin’s Creed movie gets late 2016 release date
- A second university now offers League of Legends scholarships
- Watch drone ping pong at Intel’s CES keynote
- PlayStation Network down for some gamers — Sony engineers investigating
- Intel turns its GamerGate gaffe into a huge pro-diversity program
- YouPorn explains why it ‘made sense to sponsor an e-sports team’
- ‘Captain America’ star hunks it up in Chinese Call of Duty: Online trailer
- Oregon Trail and nearly 2,400 classic games now available to play free in your browser
- Super Mario 64 is getting a fan-made HD remake — for now (update)
- Roblox exec: Our player-creation game model is the future, not Ubisoft and EA
- Open-Source Virtual Reality establishes an open platform for VR gaming — $200 dev kit launches this June
- PlayStation 4 sales surpass 18.5M after huge holiday
- How big is Minecraft? It’s even more popular than ‘Frozen’ on YouTube
- Razer announces Forge TV, a $100 Android-based microconsole that streams PC games
- Riot Games working with Comcast, AT&T, and other ISPs to build a dedicated League of Legends network
- Tony Hawk teases new console game coming this year on the PlayStation 4
- Dish Network finally launches Sling TV, its $20/month streaming TV service
- Dota 2 could get Valve founder Gabe Newell as a new shopkeeper model
- PlayStation Now game-streaming service getting a subscription plan
- Devolver Digital pitches a new Seaman game to Sega over Twitter
Mobile and social
- Kolibree ‘gamifies’ its smart electric toothbrush
- Even the Samsung Gear VR headset touts exclusive games
- Hit mobile game Monument Valley and piracy: ‘Only 5%’ of Android players paid for it
- Backyard Sports returns on mobile platforms — and now works with real basketball hoops and more

Previews and interviews
- Even robots worry about their relationship statuses
- Sega gives us a tantalizing taste of Total War: Attila (preview)
- Why Creative Assembly is rapidly expanding its Total War game empire (interview)
- To Leave expresses the emotional heartache of aspiration
Reviews