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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Nintendo’s earnings fall a little short of expectations, someone builds a calculator inside Super Mario Maker, and Uncharted 4 gets its own PlayStation 4 bundle.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Fallout, Skyrim director Todd Howard earns lifetime achievement award
- GamesBeat Summit 2016 speaker deadline is today; event is May 3-May 4
- Watch Conan play the new Doom with Super Bowl stars
- This is the Star Wars: Battle Pod you were looking for — where to play it in the U.S.
- Forget Mario and Zelda: Why NX and My Nintendo need Smash Bros.
- NBA 2K publisher views esports as nothing but marketing
- Strap into this chair on a giant simulator arm for the wildest VR ride of your life
- Gamer builds computer inside of Super Mario Maker
- Hearthstone’s drastic changes will kill hundreds of cards — but might save its future
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III — Awakening DLC goes big on fan nostalgia
- The Witness: Here’s Jon Blow’s pissjug in the game (and the hidden credits)
- What Oculus Rift and virtual reality mean for sex, death, violence, and identity
- The Division’s closed beta hands-on: Ubisoft’s blockbuster is overhyped but playable
- Gameplay footage of cancelled The Dark Knight game and its sad history
News
- Games accounted for 32% of Windows Store downloads in Q4 2015, over 85% of in-app purchases
- HTC Vive’s user manual details elaborate setup process, including moving your couch
- Unreal Engine’s latest innovation is about building games while inside virtual reality
- YouTube Gaming’s trending list proves how different it is from Twitch
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End gets its own PlayStation 4 bundle
- The carnage of Bethesda’s Doom arrives on May 13
- Another Minecraft killer? 505 Games unveils sandbox adventure Portal Knights
- Logitech unveils its newest RGB mechanical keyboard for gamers
- Microsoft releases new Windows 10 preview for PCs and ninja monkey wallpapers
- Rockstar has shipped 60M copies of Grand Theft Auto V
- Take-Two beats Wall Street’s expectations for holiday quarter earnings
- Nintendo keeps fans and industry guessing about mobile games and the NX console
- Fallout 4’s developer will reveal its development process for modular level design at GDC
- DreamHack Bucharest will give away $100K to Counter-Strike: GO’s best esports players
- The Witness clears more than $5M in its first week of sales
- Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro will take the stage together as DICE’s keynote speakers
- This augmented reality demo shows how you can turn rock wall climbing into a game
- ‘Warcraft’ actor credits Blizzard’s game with ‘saving’ his life
- Watch how Microsoft plans to change the Super Bowl with HoloLens and augmented reality
- Twitch and its 100M audience is ideal for an action flick’s trailer debut
- Blizzard introduces new Hearthstone modes to limit the cards you can use (and more deck slots)
- One-third of Steam users run Windows 10
- Path of Exile’s Ascendancy expansion launches March 4
- ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ is getting a Lego game in June, according to the Xbox Store (update: it’s official)
- Nintendo is ‘looking’ into virtual reality
- Zelda Wii U is still one of 6 Nintendo games scheduled for Wii U in 2016
- Nintendo: Splatoon, Mario Maker are ‘blockbusters’ for Wii U
- Nintendo’s holiday quarter earnings and revenues fall short of expectations
- Nintendo sold 5.88M 3DSes and 3.06M Wii U systems over last 9 months
- YouTube’s Fine Bros. face legal challenge after enraging Internet with ‘React’ trademark
- Ant Simulator canceled after crowdfunding money spent on liquor and strippers
- Tom Clancy’s The Division is getting an open beta, according to Xbox Italy
- Windows 10 passes 10% market share, overtakes Windows 8.1 and Windows XP
- Here’s what’s different in Fallout 4’s new Steam patch
- NBA 2K giving away $250,000 as part of an attempt to attract an esports crowd
- The Division beta has a problem with cheating — Ubisoft investigating
Mobile and social
- Super Salvo Sports football strategy mobile game debuts for Super Bowl
- Path of War is the first true ‘mobile’ strategy game
- Cartoon Network Studios launches original mobile game with famous animator
- Badgeville launches new data analytics to gamify work and improve consumer loyalty
- Glu’s wildest dreams come true as it partners with Taylor Swift on mobile game
- New site mixes Texas Hold ’em with Hearthstone to make wizard poker an esport
- Chinese mobile game revenues could double to $11.1B by 2019
- Autodesk announces 925 layoffs — 10% of its workforce — as part of restructuring plan
- Nintendo’s first mobile game Miitomo is launching in March along with My Nintendo service
- Magic: The Gathering — Puzzle Quest gets its first big update to boost player engagement
- Magic Leap’s and King’s deals pave way for big jump in 2016 game transactions
- China’s Linekong Interactive to invest $20M in North American mobile game business
- Game industry deals dropped 81% in value in 2015