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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup. This time, we’re celebrating the Fourth of July with gaming’s best explosions and rebellions, collecting all of our E3 non-awards, and finding out where Pokémon Shuffle is heading next.
Enjoy the stories, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair
- The DeanBeat: 22 industry leaders sound off on gaming
- Fireworks illegal in your town? Let these games do the exploding for you
- This is the rare PlayStation console built by Sony and Nintendo
- Celebrate our Independence day with gaming’s greatest rebellions
- Behind the incredible Witcher cosplay: Cleaner by day, forest guardian by night
- GamesBeat giveaway: Xbox One and Forza Horizon 2
- Watch Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto visit Kermit and more at Jim Henson Studios
- GamesBeat’s complete E3 2015 non-awards
- Twitch viewers watched nearly 12 million hours of E3 coverage (infographic)
News
- The crazy baseball question an investor asked Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata
- Nintendo master designer Miyamoto doesn’t know how Sony, Oculus will sell VR to consumers
- PSN down intermittently leading into the Fourth of July weekend (updated)
- Nintendo throws shade at Sony, Microsoft while defending its E3 presence
- Splatoon’s success even surprised Nintendo
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’s Supremacy map pack finally hits PlayStation and PC
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time hits Wii U’s Virtual Console today
- Super Evil Megacorp enlists Twitch livestream broadcasters to popularize Vainglory
- This game fights the corruption of politicians, crooks, and greedy tycoons across the globe
- Leaked Star Wars: Battlefront footage appears online as alpha testing begins
- Anki Overdrive’s customizable robot battle-car racing game debuts Sept. 20
- World of Warships sails into open beta starting today
- This GameCube-style Wii U controller could show up in stores — if Smash Bros. pros like it
- Watch the behind-closed-doors demo of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End from E3
- Magic Leap hires new content chief to bolster its defense against Microsoft’s HoloLens
- Esports giant ESL is now in the hands of a Swedish traditional media powerhouse
- PlayStation 4 and Xbox One sales in China are disappointing
- Nintendo’s Miiverse is getting new features and a redesign
- PlayStation 4 is ruling Europe with a market share between 70% and 90%
- How a random ‘punk-rock kid’ saved Unravel
- From Kickstarter to Target: Shovel Knight gets retail release
- Windows 10’s latest preview adds even more Xbox gaming features
- Trion Worlds chief: You got MMOs? Bring ’em to our platform
- Star Wars: Battlefront, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Fallout 4 lead Game Critics Awards nominations
- Canadian artist, Gears of War writer team up for new augmented reality game
- King’s Quest returns on July 28 for PlayStation, PC — and July 29 for Xbox
- Elder Scrolls Online creative director leaves Zenimax and joins Gearbox
- Acer launches a curved — and pricey — 34-inch monitor for gamers
- Sony taking down PlayStation Network tonight for maintenance
- Magid analysts pick the winners of E3
- Disney Interactive merger shows that the Mickey Mouse house’s new gaming strategy works
- Valve sells out of early Steam Machine preorders
- Video game and comic book fan events are generating billions of dollars
- Minecraft developer Mojang ceases development on its Scrolls card battler
- Planescape: Torment designer Chris Avellone could join InXile for The Bard’s Tale IV
- Hitbox challenges Amazon’s Twitch and Google’s YouTube in game livestreaming
- Why Starbreeze thinks it can compete with Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Valve’s Steam VR
Mobile and social
- Clash of Clans maker Supercell shuts down Smash Land mobile game
- Vainglory leaves beta with 1.5M monthly active players — a rarity for a mobile MOBA
- Europe’s game developers favor PC over iOS and Android
- YouTube for Android and iOS now supports 60fps video
- SongPop sequel aims to build on 100M fans of the original music trivia game
- Gamurs is a new all-in-one social network for … well, gamers
- 90% of your mobile users suck (here’s how to fix that)
- Mag Interactive acquires U.K. mobile game studio Delinquent
- SuperAwesome’s new ‘compliance as a service’ platform promises kid-safe ads
- Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban and friends pour $7M into esports platform Unikrn
- Pokémon Shuffle is coming to iOS, Android this year
- Your iPhone 6+ and other ‘phablets’ won’t fit in Fallout 4’s wearable Pip-Boy
Previews
- Beyond Eyes makes you see the world from a different (and at times scary) perspective
- Zynga’s NaturalMotion revs up its first look at CSR2 mobile racing game
- Trion Worlds to publish Devilian fantasy action role-playing online game in the West
- Firaxis’s Rising Tide will take you under the sea in expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth
- VR shooting can be great on Sony’s Morpheus, but the Rigs demo made me seasick