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Welcome to August, and welcome to another weekly collection of GamesBeat’s stories! This time, Microsoft gets ready to sell the Xbox One in China, Nintendo loses money despite the great sales of Mario Kart 8, and we talk to a 12-year-old boy who quit school to make games.
You’ll find all of that and more below. Happy reading, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinions
- The DeanBeat: The top ten takeaways from Casual Connect
- Cloud Strife, Ryu, Mega Man … the real birthdays of some of the biggest video game characters
- Destiny tries to beat the massively multiplayer console game curse
- Nintendo will need a lot from Smash Bros. and Hyrule Warriors to sell 3.6M Wii U systems
- Hearthstone: Curse of Naxxramas guide — how to beat the Plague Quarter
- The Last of Us: Breaking down its new epilogue with Naughty Dog, Joel, and Ellie
- Meet the 12-year-old boy who makes games instead of going to school
- GamesBeat’s complete Comic-Con experience (photo gallery)
News
- Xbox Live is down (again) for many and is causing a black-screen bug
- Beyond Good & Evil director joins new indie studio — but he’s still at Ubisoft as well
- PlayStation sales tripled Xbox sales last quarter, according to Sony
- Xbox One secures its first MMO — and it’s coming to free-to-play-crazy China (update)
- Titanfall’s ‘no servers found’ issue affecting players — Microsoft is working on a fix (update)
- Xbox Live is down for some Xbox One owners — Microsoft is working on a fix
- Crytek drops U.K. studio and downsizes its team in Austin after Deep Silver buys Homefront
- Deep Silver acquires Homefront property from Crytek — sequel development switches to new studio
- Mario Kart 8 couldn’t outrace Nintendo’s $97M loss last quarter
- Microsoft to launch Xbox One in China on Sept. 23 for $600
- Bungie’s Destiny beta test sets record for new console games, Activision claims
- Hearthstone players encountering issues when paying for Curse of Naxxramas with in-game gold
- Curse of Naxxramas’s second part is live — battle through Plague Quarter now
- Gaymer X’s uncertain future has the indie-gaming scene pulling together to help
- Xbox One preorders begin in China under Tencent’s banner
- Have $5 a month? Then you can afford FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, and more in EA’s new subscription service on Xbox One
- HBO debuts gaming-addiction documentary tonight — watch the trailer
- Mega Man creator joins $15M Japanese developer fund after years of criticizing his home country’s games
- Raptr wants gamers to broadcast to Twitch through its network and nowhere else
- Rust fans angry at developer for working on two games at once
- Bravely Default’s 1M copies sold reveals why it has Square Enix reconsidering its Final Fantasy strategy
Mobile and social
- EA discontinues online services for iOS game Ultima Forever — one year after launch
- Role-playing game classic Dragon Quest IV coming to iOS in the U.S.
- Alibaba’s investment values Kabam at more than $1B
- East meets West in mobile games as Kabam raises $120M from China’s Alibaba Group
- Puzzle & Dragons’ huge profit explains why Square Enix has 20 new mobile games in 2014
- Mobile-gaming ad network RockYou secures $10M in financing
- Former Zynga developers secure $2.5M in seed funding for startup JuiceBox Games
- Chartboost partners with China’s Chukong Technologies to take game monetization global
- Tapstream: New SMS-based mobile user acquisition tool has ‘order of magnitude’ higher returns
- Think Gaming introduces mobile-advertising co-op exchange to help developers find the big spenders
Previews and interviews
- Fantasy Life is the role-playing game where you can be a chef just as easily as a mercenary (preview)
- How Sledgehammer Games became the new Call of Duty studio (interview)
- How Sledgehammer tricks you into believing the visual realism of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (interview)
- The making of Sledgehammer Games and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (exclusive)
- Here’s why Amazon has become a major player in games (interview)
- Fates Forever will test whether MOBAs designed for tablets can attract those who play League of Legends or Dota 2 (interview)
Reviews and impressions