GamesBeat weekly roundup: The future of Disney Infinity, and Zynga’s new CEO

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we continue our celebration of Pokémon’s 20th anniversary, Nintendo announces some new games, and we get an early look at Quantum Break.

Enjoy, and have a great weekend!

Pieces of flair and opinion

• The DeanBeat: I’m surrendering to the aliens in XCOM 2. It’s too hard
• The Pokémon World Championships are all about community
• 6 celebrities that should play Pokémon in a live-action movie
• A timeline of Uncharted 4’s many delays
• How the Pokémon cartoon and games form one of media’s best symbiotic relationships
• Pokémon’s best spinoff games: As picked by two Pokénerds
• Satoshi Tajiri: The man who created Pokémon
• 20 years have produced some seriously ugly Pokémon
• How Pikachu went from rare rodent to media icon
• How to get Pokémon Red and Blue’s pea soup coloring and a Game Boy border on your 3DS
• Pokémon: a guide to joining the party 20 years late
• VR Bangers takes porn to virtual reality with 360-degree 4K videos
• Ranking six generations of Pokémon games from worst to best
• Pokémon turns 20 after two decades of capturing our hearts

Above: Your Arwing can take a couple of forms in Star Fox: Zero.

Image Credit: Nintendo

News

• Learning from Destiny, Ubisoft details a year of content for The Division
• Kirby returns to 3DS with Planet Robobot (and new Amiibos)
• Nintendo is releasing a new Rhythm Heaven for 3DS in the West
• New 3DSes get Super Nintendo games, including Earthbound, Zelda, and Super Mario World
• Nintendo announces Paper Mario: Color Splash for Wii U
• Super Mario Maker update comes next week with keys, pink coins, and super expert mode
• Star Fox: Zero comes out for Wii U on April 22 (with an extra game)
• Oculus VR founder: We’ll support Mac if Apple ‘ever releases a good computer’
• Darwinian bacteria survival game Agar.io has bagged 2B views on YouTube
• No Man’s Sky comes out on June 21 for PlayStation 4 and PC
• Samsung and Six Flags partner to launch virtual reality roller coasters at 9 U.S. amusement parks
• Limitless creates a platform to make interactive VR worlds and characters like Gary the Gull
• Here’s how HTC Vive’s front-facing camera works while you’re in virtual reality
• Nintendo fends off more patent trolls in Wii victory
• Star Wars: Battlefront’s next expansion brings new (slightly obscure) heroes
• Meta starts taking orders for high-end augmented reality dev kit
• Rocket League enters the esports world with Twitch-backed championship series
• Glispa closes 2015 with a $100M run rate for performance-based marketing
• Yahoo capitalizes on its well-regarded Yahoo Sports with new esports push
• PlayStation blog briefly claims No Man’s Sky is $60 and is coming out Thursday (but probably not)
• Everything Microsoft announced at its Xbox spring showcase
• Activision joins EA in abandoning the Electronic Entertainment Expo’s show floor
• Oculus founder Palmer Luckey on Minecraft in VR and launching the Rift
• Microsoft’s gaming chief discusses Quantum Break and why Windows gaming is good for Xbox One
• Windows 10 gamers will get Forza Motorsport 6: Apex racing game for free
• PlayStation 4 gets remote-play compatibility with PC and Mac in 3.50 update
• HTC sold 15,000 $800 Vive virtual reality headsets in 10 minutes
• Bethesda’s Fallout 4 season-pass price hike has it on top of Steam’s best-seller list
• Play Half-Life 2 in virtual reality with your Razer OSVR headset thanks to Steam
• The guided missile technology that makes HoloLens work
• Minecraft’s newest update improves combat
• Microsoft starts taking preorders for HoloLens Development Edition, shipping March 30
• Utomik starts beta test of ‘Netflix for games’ with 145 titles for $5.99 per month

Above: Frank Gibeau, Zynga’s new CEO.

Image Credit: Zynga

Mobile and social

• Sega confirms layoffs in Western mobile division to focus on its famous characters
• N3twork brings aboard a CRO to figure out user acquisition for mobile games
• Periscope competitor Stre.am expands with pivot to mobile esports
• Supercell’s Clash Royale rushes to the top of the download charts in 12 hours
• Analysts and investors react well to Zynga’s new CEO Frank Gibeau
• Mark Pincus and Frank Gibeau talk about the future of Zynga and social mobile gaming
• Social casino game creator FlowPlay launches in-game fundraiser for the American Cancer Society
• Augment raises $3M to bring augmented reality to sales pitches
• Cooking Fever gets a dash of the world’s top soccer club to widen its appeal
• Zynga stock price jumps 7% as new chief executive replaces Pincus
• Meet Frank Gibeau, Zynga’s new CEO
• Zynga names ex-EA mobile exec Frank Gibeau as its CEO
• Ex-Halo developers create Midnight Star: Renegade mobile shooter
• Games for Change and American Express launch game to save our national parks
• The Catch dating app lets women pick men based on personality
• China’s Mobvista buys mobile user acquisition company NativeX for $25M
• Fallout Shelter gets crafting in new update

Above: Will is about to get hit by bullets in slow-motion. But Jack can save him in this scene from Quantum Break.

Image Credit: Microsoft

Previews, reviews, and interviews

• Star Fox: Guard blends tower defense and cute robots with … Uncle Scrooge’s Money Bin
• Nintendo fixed Star Fox: Zero
• Hands-on: Supercell has another big winner in Clash Royale
• How Ashes of the Singularity enables massive planetary battles with huge sci-fi armies
• How Remedy controlled a complicated story across the Quantum Break games and videos
• Here’s how you die a lot in Dark Souls III
• Disney Infinity designers explain why we don’t need 4.0 and … a possible Michael Jackson figure
• Ashes of the Singularity is like StarCraft on steroids
• Pit People is the silliest game coming for Microsoft’s platforms
• Check out our captured video of Quantum Break’s opening act
• Quantum Break’s time-bending first act is meant to blow your mind
• Minecraft in VR is cool, but it made me seasick
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD erases my Wii resentment