GamesBeat weekly roundup: Christmas network outages and games for your new mobile devices

Happy holidays, everyone! Unless you’ve been trying to connect to Xbox Live or PSN, then it’s been slightly less happy. This week, we covered Microsoft and Sony’s network problems, talked about the biggest disappointments of the year, and gave Far Cry 4 fans some extra media to digest.

You’ll find all of that and more below. Have a great weekend!

Pieces of flair and opinion

• The DeanBeat: The $2B mobile game and other bold predictions for 2015

• 20 essential games for your new iPad

• 30 essential games for your new Android tablet

• 15 essential games for your new iPhone

• 30 essential games for your new Android phone

• 5 moderately disturbing ways to experience the weirdness of the holidays online

• Read+Watch+Listen: Bonus material for Far Cry 4 fans

• How gaming celebrates the holidays in 2014

Best and worst of 2014

• Best of 2014: Gaming’s biggest surprises

• The biggest gaming trends in 2014

• Best of 2014: The year’s most innovative games

• Worst of 2014: Gaming’s biggest disappointments

News

• PSN is coming back online, Xbox Live is up — and that’s maybe because of Kim Dotcom

• Sony confirms PSN problems for PS4 but doesn’t comment on hacking reports

• PSN down for PS4 — Lizard Squad claims responsibility

• Xbox Live down on Xbox One — cyberattackers take credit again

• You can watch Sony Pictures’ ‘The Interview’ using Xbox Video but not PlayStation Network

• Samsung TVs getting Sony’s PlayStation Now game-streaming service

• Two MMO vets create new independent studio to fix ‘stale’ industry

• Bandi Namco’s bringing its Super Smash Bros.-like anime brawler to the West

• Nintendo hires new lobbying firm to convince Washington to take more action against piracy

• LittleBigPlanet 3 experiment: It’s like Twitch plays Pokémon but with a robot

Mobile and social

• Sifteo’s intelligent cubes go open-source after disappointing commercial run

• By the ‘stache of Alex Trebek! DoubleDown Casino adds ‘Jeopardy’ game

• Imangi’s Temple Run sprints into virtual reality on the Samsung Gear

• Digital crossword puzzle company PuzzleSocial raises $3 million in funding

• This Android app broadcasts any mobile game you want to stream

• Hearthstone on Android cracks the top-grossing charts despite limited availability

• Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba rumored to be working on its own game console for China

• This video game reckons it can get your kids to tidy their rooms

Previews and interviews

• How the fans guided every step of the way for Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMIX (interview)

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