Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we review The Last Guardian, look at Japan’s arcade industry, and PewDiePie is threatening to delete his giant YouTube channel.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Opinions and pieces of flair
- The DeanBeat: Epic graphics guru Tim Sweeney foretells how we can create the open Metaverse
- What PewDiePie’s hissy fit teaches us about YouTube
- Watch Nintendo mastermind Shigeru Miyamoto play Mario’s theme with The Roots
- Was The Last Guardian worth the wait? GamesBeat Decides
- Why Japan’s arcades are its game industry’s cutting-edge labs
- Inside Square Enix’s Tokyo HQ: the house that Final Fantasy built
- Why 2016 is the year of strategy games
News
- Paladins hits 5 million registered players as it competes against Overwatch
- PlayStation 4 Pro helps Sony’s console outsell Xbox One in November in the U.S.
- Obsidian lays off undisclosed number of its Armored Warfare staff
- Heroes of the Storm’s game director leaves for unknown Blizzard project
- Discord hits 25 million users and releases GameBridge SDK for voice chat
- AMD’s Radeon Software graphics driver update includes gameplay capture
- HTC just launched its first VR game: Arcade Saga
- Vivendi’s stake in game publisher Ubisoft now exceeds 25%, triggering a possible takeover battle (updated)
- Nintendo surprises The Tonight Show with a playable Nintendo Switch and Zelda
- Doom’s latest free update is huge and out now
- HTC shows off 20 virtual reality startups at its Vive X accelerator
- YouTube’s top-10 most-viewed game trailers of 2016: Pokémon, Overwatch, and more
- Despite slow 2016, VR is still forecast to hit $14 billion in consumer software sales in 2020
- Oculus, Sony, Google, and more launch virtual reality advocacy group
- Ubisoft is taking Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance to the world’s largest indoor theme park
- PlayStation 4 sales pass 50 million consoles after the brand’s strongest Black Friday ever
- Virtuix’s Kickstarters won’t be running on the Omni VR treadmill outside the U.S.
- NES Classic Edition tease: Amazon says it has ‘exciting announcements’ coming soon
- The Duke returns? Xbox One could get the original Xbox’s gargantuan controller
- Battlerite’s winter patch will add a new champion and cosmetics on December 14
- Overwatch winter event begins December 13 for an a-Mei-zing Christmas time
- Curse voice app adds video calls and screen sharing
- Paragon’s Monolith update speeds up the PlayStation 4 and PC MOBA
- Visbit raises $3.2 million for mobile virtual reality streaming service
- Blizzard releases Ragnaros on Heroes of the Storm’s test server
- PewDiePie threatens to quit YouTube over claims of sabotage
- Steam is where you should build your VR game library — even if you own an Oculus Rift
- THQ Nordic acquires more franchises to prepare for the Nintendo Switch
- Former White House games adviser joins board of Games for Change
Mobile and social
- Rocky says ‘Yo, Adrian’ to the mobile gaming market
- Osmo raises $24 million from Mattel and Sesame Street as it expands its AR tablet games to the iPhone
- Google unveils 7 more Daydream mobile VR apps
- Pokémon Go turns Starbucks into Pokécafes
- Pokémon Go was the third most discussed topic on Facebook in 2016. The first? You’ll never guess…
- Zynga finally releases its epic action strategy mobile game Dawn of Titans
- Super Mario Run gets a live-action trailer and a new informational video
- Super Mario Run demos to hit Apple Stores Thursday
- Pokémon Go update finally lets you transfer multiple monsters to Professor Willow at once
- Pokémon Go players have a new haven: Sprint stores
- MobilityWare acquires mobile game developer Critical Hit Software
- Pokémon Go is getting new Pokémon, info coming on December 12
- SafeDK sorts through the maze of mobile software developer kits
- Pokémon Go snubbed: Apple chooses Clash Royale as its iPhone Game of the Year
- Sprint is making an ‘exclusive’ Pokémon Go announcement on Wednesday morning
- Pokémon Go Gen 2 sweet, frozen, caffeinated rumor: More monsters and Starbucks promo
- Mobile ad growth helps Glispa raise profits in 2016
- Case revived over Zynga leaders allegedly using inside information to dump stock in 2012
- Vainglory crowns its first world champion
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Surgeon Simulator for PlayStation VR controls like a drunk doc — but not for much longer
- Watch us play with Oculus Touch — the Rift’s motion controllers
- After a decade of waiting, you can watch the opening moments of The Last Guardian
- Oculus Rift owners need to get Touch — but the motion controllers need more games
- The Last Guardian straddles the line between feeling old and feeling timeless