Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! Sony and Apple certainly made sure it was a busy week. Besides all of their shenanigans, Blizzard announced changes for Hearthstone’s Arena mode, and the Xbox One outsold the PlayStation 4 in August.
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: What Pokémon Go, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Mafia III share in common
- PlayStation 4 Pro is not a real 4K console
- Star Trek’s best game in 50 years is this simple first-person shooter
- PlayStation 4 Pro isn’t for professionals; it’s for people who already own a PS4
- Why it matters that Nintendo put Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto on Apple’s stage
- Apple and Sony made today one of the best days for gamers
- Sony’s PlayStation 4 Neo event: What to expect
- World of Warcraft: Legion Day 8 journal — getting into world quests
- Overwatch’s competitive mode is way better in Season 2
- World of Warcraft: Legion Day 7 journal — going far in Suramar
- World of Warcraft: Legion Day 6 journal — hitting level 110
News
- Xbox One outsold PlayStation 4 again in August
- Blizzard is removing cards from Hearthstone’s Arena mode to make it more fair
- TwitchCon 2016 will have a Streamline tournament worth $10,000
- No Man’s Sky edges out Madden for August’s most popular game videos
- Lego Harry Potter Collection is coming to PlayStation 4
- PlayStation 4 Pro specs: 4.2 TFLOPS, AMD GPU, and more
- Xbox One S does what PlayStation 4 Pro won’t: Play UHD 4K Blu-ray discs
- Every announcement and trailer from the PlayStation 4 Pro event
- Every PlayStation 4 supports HDR — firmware update coming next week
- Sony touts how Days Gone will look on a PS4 Pro 4K HDR display
- Older PlayStation 4 games can look better on Pro via forward compatibility
- Mass Effect Andromeda shown at Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro event
- Call of Duty games will support PS4 Pro 4K HDR graphics on day one
- Sony explains why better PlayStation 4 graphics matter
- PlayStation 4 Pro is the $400 4K, HDR Sony console — launches November 10
- Slimmer PlayStation 4 revealed at Sony’s New York City event
- College esports gets a new organization to promote and organize events
- Counter-Strike’s second Eleague esports season kicks off on TBS and Twitch
- Pixelmage’s Hero’s Song fantasy role-playing game hits early backers in November (update)
- Activision Blizzard names ex Fox Sports exec as CEO of esports division
- WTF? World of Tanks Blitz mashes up with Valkyria Chronicles
- PlayStation Network is down again for many
- Xbox Live’s Club and Looking for Group features enter preview on Xbox One, Windows 10
- The Game Awards — and its new trailers for game releases — scheduled for December 1 in Los Angeles
- Epic Games announces game jam for its VR Funhouse mod tools
- Pokémon Sun and Moon take place 12 hours apart from each other
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III Salvation DLC arrives Monday on PS4
- Battlefield 1 open beta servers are down for many (Update: Fixed)
Mobile and social
- Pokémon Go is fastest mobile game ever to make $500 million
- Nintendo will launch Pokémon Go Plus on September 16
- Nintendo share price up 29% following Super Mario Run debut at iPhone event
- Apple takes sign-ups for Nintendo’s Super Mario Run
- Pokémon Go is coming to the Apple Watch after 500 million downloads
- Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto takes Apple’s stage to introduce Super Mario Run
- Mobile hit Badland 2 arrives on Android
- Fyusion unveils mobile content creation platform for augmented reality
- AC/DC rocks VR with Stern pinball table on Samsung Gear headset
- Niko: China’s mobile game market will hit $8.3 billion in 2017
- Disney’s shutdown of Marvel: Avengers Alliance games shows the difficulties of mobile
Previews, reviews, and interviews