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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Nintendo discontinues the NES Classic Edition, someone is making a mechanical version of Pong, and Overwatch gets a new cooperative mode.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: Silicon Valley, sci-fi, and games are coming together
- GamesBeat Summit to delve into China’s role in the global game ecosystem
- Is Minecraft going free-to-play? GamesBeat Decides
- GamesBeat embraces our first love: PC gaming
- Sci-fi writer Rob Reid and UCSF brain researcher Adam Gazzaley to speak at GamesBeat Summit
- Dallas emergency siren hacking is like a scene out of Watch Dogs 2
- Kickstarter for mechanical Atari Pong game table enters its final days
News
- Starfighter Inc. and its spaceship-vs.-spaceship combat reaches its Kickstarter goal
- Titanfall 2 is getting a new mech and new maps before the end of June
- March 2017 NPD: Nintendo Switch sales surpass 906,000 in the U.S.
- How Epic built a player base of nearly 1 million Paragon players
- Nintendo is discontinuing the hard-to-find NES Classic Edition
- Alice Cooper is your boss in a weird 3DS game about flinging birds in a pet shop
- Cities: Skylines’ new expansion glides as softly as a cloud with monorails and blimps
- VR First is creating 50 labs for virtual reality education at universities
- Visbit moves into open beta and reveals new virtual reality live streaming service
- Nintendo Direct trailer roundup: Arms, Splatoon 2, Fire Emblem, and more
- Arms releases for Nintendo Switch on June 16
- Splatoon 2 launches July 21 with cooperative horde mode
- Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition launches on eShop on May 11
- Nintendo introduces yellow Switch Joy-Cons and a battery pack
- Cloud, Bayonetta, Corrin, and more Links are getting new Amiibos
- ‘Rick and Morty’ VR game launches 4/20 so you have something to do while getting high
- Xbox One and Windows 10 get return policy test for digital games and apps
- PlayStation Vue is getting a dedicated esports channel
- TheWaveVR releases social VR music beta and raises $4 million
- MindMaze reveals Mask to capture your facial expression in virtual reality
- Yakuza will reimagine its first chapter on August 29
- Gamers believe more people will watch digital entertainment than traditional sports by 2022
- Star Wars: Battlefront II trailer leaks and teases Kylo Ren, single-player, and more
- Old Time Hockey is like EA NHL’s beer-league cousin
- AMD releases 6-core Ryzen 5 desktop processors for gamers
- Overwatch’s Uprising event is official and live now
- Nyko’s PlayStation VR Charge Block will keep you ready to move
- Deformers arena combat game debuts on the PC and consoles on April 21
- Esports arena is coming to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas
- Bayonetta brings its stylish action to PC via Steam
- Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is releasing on August 22 for $40
- Grand Theft Auto Online’s new mode channels Splatoon, of all things
- Planet Coaster’s free Spring Update adds go-karts, dueling coasters, and more
- Strife developer S2 Games channels Clash Royale with Brawl of Ages
- VR analytics startup Virtualitics raises $4.4 million
- Battlegrounds surges past 1 million copies sold on Steam in a mere 16 days
- Overwatch: Insurrection trailer leaks in French with new skins, co-op mode
- Fnatic raises $7 million from Boston Celtics owners to beef up esports ambitions
- The Franz Kafka Videogame’s inspiration comes from literature
- The Elder Scrolls Online wants to lure you to Tamriel with a week of free play
- Nintendo Direct will return April 12 with Splatoon 2 and Arms
- AltspaceVR founder wants to make virtual reality as accessible as the web
Mobile
- Mobile game revenue grew 53% to $11.9 billion in Q1 2017
- Bidalgo uses AI to automate ad buying for app marketers
- Morpholio introduces Ava app to transform interior design
- Temple Gates takes Race for the Galaxy card game into mobile
- Shipyard Games raises $2.9 million from Clash Royale maker Supercell
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Prey’s lead designer created a game where enemies are everywhere
- Prey hands-on shows some suspenseful surprises
- Overwatch: Uprising gameplay — watch us succeed and fail together
- Frostpunk is a steam-powered city-management game from This War Of Mine studio
- Watch us play Yooka-Laylee: a pretty, messy successor to Banjo-Kazooie
- OptiTrack adds realism to shooting games in VR
- Sixense’s Siege VR takes advantage of VR motion controllers