GamesBeat weekly roundup: Tom Hanks, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, game startups in Estonia, and more

Jasmine Maleficent Rea July 20, 2012 12:03 PM

If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best games stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

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This week, the Xbox 360 is the number-one-selling console for the 18th month in a row, the U.S. Senate considers legalizing online poker, and a Taiwanese gamer dies after playing Diablo III for 40 hours straight.

You’ll also find a review for Dyad as well as several video interviews with Tapjoy, Ouya designer Yves Béhar, and Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus.

GamesBeat:

The DeanBeat: What GamesBeat 2012 tells us about the road ahead in gaming

Nextpeer gives developers new ways to monetize their games via multiplayer tournaments

The War Z takes zombie-survival into the massively multiplayer arena

Tapjoy keeps looking for creative ways to monetize mobile app users (video interview)

Insomniac Games’ Pokémon-inspired Facebook title, Outernauts, is now in open beta

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Startup hopes to fund a Shadowrun MMO through Kickstarter

Ouya designer Yves Béhar talks disruption and design (video interview)

Ubisoft posts strong quarterly results thanks to sales of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

China’s Tencent marches to the West in search of kick-ass games (interviews)

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If RuneScape were a country, it’d have the fifth largest population in the world (infographic)

Earnings preview: Game makers to see mixed second quarter

DICE: ‘We’re in one of the best positions’ for Battlefield 4 timing

New Call of Duty: Black Ops II video says games are better than movies while touting Hollywood connection

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Estonia accelerator flooded with 122 game startup applications

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD is a decent update to the original but brings along some baggage (review)

Alt-rock legend Beck contributes exclusive tracks to Sound Shapes

U.S. Senate considering legalizing online poker — and cracking down on other Internet gambling

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Valve targets Ubuntu Linux operating system for Steam port

I’ve got a bad feeling about this — Star Wars: The Old Republic’s producer leaves BioWare

Pachter on the case for Call of Duty: Black Ops II on the Wii U

Casual game site operator Oberon rebrands itself as Iplay

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TransGaming to launch World Poker Tour game for smart TVs

Microsoft veteran starts PeopleFun mobile game startup (exclusive)

Tom Hanks gets into the game-making business

Sony Pictures joins in on the movie-game disruption trend

Free-to-play Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances surpasses 1 million players

Intermittent Uplay outage renders several Ubisoft games unplayable

You can’t un-see these 11 video game box art clichés

Leisure Suit Larry publisher trades up to a new developer (exclusive)

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale’s roster grows by two: Adding Cole MacGrath, Jak and Daxter

Microsoft releasing a $400 Halo 4-themed Xbox 360

Marvel teams up with High Moon Studios for an upcoming game based on Deadpool

Battlefield 4 seemingly revealed by Origin