GamesBeat weekly roundup: Activision closes King deal, and new Pokémon announced

Check out more of our 20th anniversary of Pokémon coverage this week at GamesBeat.

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Fire Emblem: Fates is a hit, we learn more about the Iron Maiden mobile game, and Nintendo cuts its 2016 earnings guidance.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Pieces of flair and opinion

• The DeanBeat: Nine memorable moments from gaming’s elite DICE Summit

• How to find Far Cry: Primal’s secret homage to Blood Dragon

Above: Sun and Moon are coming.

Image Credit: Nintendo

News

• Sun and Moon are Pokémon’s next games — coming this holiday

• Nintendo cuts 2016 earnings guidance and says it will sell 1M fewer 3DSes than predicted

• Capcom boosts its rerelease strategy with Resident Evil 4, RE5, and RE6 for PS4 and Xbox One

• Bandai Namco brings permadeath dungeon-crawler Necropolis to consoles

• Naughty Dog and Sony issue a new Uncharted 4 trailer without Ubisoft’s imagery

• After spending $32M, World of Tanks developer Wargaming is still figuring out esports

• Fire Emblem: Fates’ sales cement Nintendo’s strategy series as a retail hit in the West

• Uncharted 4’s newest trailer underscores the importance of story [update]

• AMD partners with Stardock to create awesome graphics for Ashes of the Singularity

• Bank Limit takes F-Zero and adds VR and combat, debuts at Oculus Rift’s launch

• Fueled by Twitch, Punch Club surpasses $2M in sales and preps The Dark Fist expansion

• UC Davis uses a game to chart its future

• Borderlands headlines free Xbox Live Games with Gold for March

• Fallout 4 mod support hits PC in April, Xbox One in May, & PlayStation 4 in June

• Interabang starts Fig crowdfunding campaign for Jay and Silent Bob video game

• Neverwinter prepares to unleashes its next expansion … and Orcus

• Nerf herding — Star Wars: Battlefront gets Twilight Hoth map and more in February update

• HoloLens video demonstrates Windows 10’s augmented reality user interface

• Xbox Live down again as persistent troubles haunt the Xbox One (update)

• Microsoft will show app reviews from some Insiders in the Windows Store

• Final Fantasy creator’s Mistwalker studio teams up with Bravely Default maker Silicon Studio

• How Fallout 4’s next update changes the game — and how to get it now

• The Division’s beta attracted 6.4 million players

• Halo World Championship’s $2.5M prize pool is the largest in esports shooter history

• What Stan Lee and Steve Wozniak are brewing for their 1st Silicon Valley Comic Con

• Twitch competitor DingIt rounds up 20M monthly viewers

• Facebook’s Zuckerberg appears at Samsung event to talk VR, confirms Minecraft is coming to Oculus

• HTC Vive will cost $799, preorder on February 29 and ships in early April (updated)

Above: Pac-Man Puzzle Tour for iOS and Android.

Image Credit: Bandai Namco

Mobile and social

• Niantic raises $5 million to forge ahead with Pokémon Go

• Pac-Man: Puzzle Tour is another Candy Crush clone

• Mobile virtual reality on track to hit $861M in revenues this year

• mNectar’s new Spectra streaming network turns ads into playable games

• Virtual reality hype runs amok at MWC 2016, as mobile industry crowds onto bandwagon

• Finland’s PlayRaven launches Robocide ‘micro real-time strategy’ mobile game

• Kendall & Kylie game takes Glu Mobile to the top 10 again after poor Katy Perry launch

• FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs catches the express train to India to make mobile games

• Why positional tracking for mobile virtual reality is so damn hard

• Saudi Arabia’s mobile-gaming whales want what’s hot — even if it’s in another language

• RevTwo lets you call for help when you’re having an app fail

• Zynga puts its San Francisco headquarters up for sale

• Activision Blizzard adds a few hundred million users as it closes $5.9B King acquisition

• Hollywood backs Fifth Journey to take movie-licensed games to China

• Oculus’s Gear VR boss: Samsung Galaxy S7 beats the S7 Edge for virtual reality

• App monetization and distribution platform Appnext grew revenue 345% in 2015

• Kabam lays off 8% as it focuses on massively multiplayer mobile hits like Marvel: Contest of Champions

• Daily fantasy sports outlook: No profits, lots of uncertainty, and dying unicorns

• Facebook says people have watched 1 million hours of video with Samsung Gear VR, forms Social VR team

• Samsung arms every Unpacked attendee with Gear VR to watch its press conference

• Should Bethesda’s Todd Howard bet on mobile or console Fallout games?

Previews, reviews, and interviews

• Unicorn story: How this young woman went from student to indie game studio chief

• Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast turns iconic metal band’s mascot into a mobile gaming star

• How Bruce Shelley brought a board gamer’s view into designing Civilization

• Warren Spector wants to mine new ’emergent gameplay’ from System Shock’s nostalgia

• Far Cry: Primal rocks the Stone Age but feels stale

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