Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Microsoft sells 1 million Xbox One Elite controllers, Disney announces Wreck-It Ralph 2, and the BioShock series gets remastered.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: The battle of the esports titans
- Hearthstone pro player hits legend in 3 days on a free-to-play account
- Atari cofounder’s son takes video games beyond the couch
News
- EA exec Karl Magnus Troedsson departs for Raw Fury’s indie game business
- Fallout 4 1.6 update beta out now: Here’s what’s new and different
- ‘VR porn’ searches up 9,900% on Google since 2014
- Epic Games gives out $80,000 with more Unreal Dev Grants
- Wreck-It Ralph 2 takes its love of gaming from the arcade to the internet
- NBC and Samsung to bring 85 hours of virtual reality coverage to the Rio Olympic Games
- BioShock: The Collection bundles the series’ 3 games on September 13
- Industry veteran David Reid unveils MetaArcade Adventures platform
- Britain gets its own esports association
- VR venture capital alliance forms $10 billion investment fund
- AMD’s HiAlgo acquisition brings gamer-friendly tools to Radeon Software experience
- Fallout 4 mods delayed for PlayStation 4
- Last wave of preorders for PlayStation VR open up on June 30
- July 2016 PlayStation Plus free games: Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, early Paragon, and more
- Neverwinter brings PlayStation 4 its first D&D game on July 19
- Battlefield 1, Horizon: Zero Dawn bag multiple E3 game critic nominations
- Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End multiplayer gets a new leveling system, map, and more
- Sweden’s Fast Travel Games raises seed round for VR games
- AMD’s $200 Radeon RX 480 graphics cards make VR work on a budget
- Windows 10 is now on over 350 million devices, free Anniversary Update coming on August 2
- EA responds to FIFA Ultimate Team community about alleged ‘chemistry glitch’
- Remake for PC classic System Shock is now Kickstarter
- Microsoft has made 1 million Xbox One Elite controllers
- Madden publisher EA settles with NFL legend Jim Brown over likeness dispute
- The Elder Scrolls Online’s new update lets players change their appearance and race
- Obduction revives the Myst experience for virtual reality
- Acer and Starbreeze join forces for the StarVR Virtual Reality headset
- Microsoft is killing Xbox Fitness on July 1, 2017
- ‘Minecraft: The Movie’ brings block-building action to theaters summer 2019
- Uncharted 4 made $56M in digital revenues from downloads and microtransactions in May
- Balrog joins Street Fighter V’s roster when Story Mode launches July 1
- WWE 2K17 is coming October 11 with Brock Lesnar on the cover
Mobile and social
- Flaregames finds publishing mobile games is a better fit than making them
- Facebook kicked Zynga to the curb, publishers are next
- 45% of top-100 Android-game revenues in China belong to Tencent
- CSR Racing 2 and its ‘beyond console’ graphics launch on iOS and Android
- Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius is out now for iOS and Android
- PlayStation’s Vue cord-cutting TV service is coming to Android
- How mobile studios can use game influencers to overcome overcrowded app stores
- Gordon Ramsay puts a dash of attitude into Glu Mobile game
- Qualcomm optimizes Snapdragon processor for Google’s AR platform Tango
- Tetris Blitz: 2016 Edition is the latest iteration of the falling-blocks game for iOS and Android
- Newzoo partners with Pushwoosh to better understand how people use their smart devices
- Kabam to make mobile strategy game based on James Cameron’s Avatar
- Plarium teams with Skydance to create Terminator Genisys mobile game
- King’s newest match-3 game is Farm Heroes Super Saga
- Smash Squad is Wargaming’s mobile take on Monster Strike
- Twitch’s Cheers enable fans to fund their favorite livestreamers with premium emotes
- Animation Throwdown mobile card game mashes up Family Guy, Futurama, and other TV shows
- Tencent’s reach is unmatched in the gaming market
- TapReason uses A.I. to decide the magic moment to recommend an app
- Green Man Gaming carves out a $40 million niche in Steam’s shadow (updated)
- Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell is bullish on virtual reality
Previews, reviews, and interviews
- Astro’s new A50 model solves the big problem with wireless gaming headsets
- AMD’s Radeon RX 480 deserves the attention of the GPU mass market
- Monster Hunter producers break down how to add new features and preserve its classic feel
- Destiny: Rise of Iron producer on the pressures of updates, engagement, and player trust
- How Kenji Inafune’s ReCore prizes color and cute robots over realism and blood
- Volition’s Saints Row lesson: Embrace diversity in Agents of Mayhem from day one
- Mighty No. 9 is a bland, frustrating game that doesn’t deserve to succeed Mega Man
- Steep combines Ubisoft’s risk-taking and open-world big-budget design
- Gone Home creators have gone to outer space with Tacoma