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Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, Microsoft revealed a series of holiday bundles for the Xbox One, and we’ve been busy reviewing all of those fall games.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
- The DeanBeat: GamesBeat 2015 will reveal the state of the game industry
- Watch us play old Tony Hawk games to help us forget about the new one
- How to follow the fighting game esports scene
- GamesBeat 2015 explores the future of user-generated content
- Watch us play and complain about Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
- The inside story of the long-lost South Park game
- How esports are driving the evolution of Street Fighter and the Capcom Cup
- My failed — but educational — run to Hearthstone’s Legend ranks
- GamesBeat 2015 tackles how to crack the Asian markets
- Mega Man 3, one of the greatest games ever, is 25 years old today
- GamesBeat panel examines how to raise money after the gaming boom
News
- NBA 2K16 sells over four million copies in one week
- Ahead of Rock Band 4 release, Harmonix raises $15M to innovate in music gaming
- Activision is working to fix the woeful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5
- SuperData: Star Wars: Battlefront ‘won’t reverse’ EA’s luck with shooters
- Xbox Live down intermittently for many gamers (updated)
- Times Square’s 2,150-capacity concert venue renamed PlayStation Theater
- Minecraft: Story Mode trailer sets narrative-heavy tone for the block-building phenomenon
- Controversial Deus Ex: Mankind Divided preorder program cancelled
- Windows 10 grabs 6.63% market share, Linux finally passes Windows Vista
- Walmart starts preorders for Xbox One Gears of War Ultimate Edition bundle
- Prison Architect has already earned $19M, and it doesn’t release until next week
- The fan that’s trying to re-create Pokémon Red in Minecraft has made some updates
- SteelSeries will give commissions to streamers who use — and hawk — their gear
- New trailer finally reveals story behind Call of Duty: Black Ops III
- Oculus VR explains why Touch controllers aren’t shipping with the Rift in 2016
- Super Smash Bros. gets two new DLC stages: Wind Waker and Super Mario Maker
- World of Tanks developer reenacts a 1941 battle for 360-degree video and virtual reality
- GamesBeat 2015 tackles how to use data to improve user acquisition and boost monetization
- Divinity: Original Sin II Kickstarter ends with over $2M pledged
- Super Mario Maker already sells 1 million copies
- Sony head Shuhei Yoshida wants more from The Last of Us
- Nvidia finally launches GeForce Now cloud gaming for Shield set-top console
- Amazon helps game devs make money through self-serve T-shirt sales
- 5 keys to the future of esports, according to Newzoo research firm
- Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection demo is live on the PlayStation Store
- PlayStation 4’s 3.00 update goes live tomorrow — here’s what’s different
- Back to the Future: The Game — 30th Anniversary Edition gets an appropriate release date: October 13
- Microsoft reveals 1TB Xbox One holiday bundle with Gears of War, Rare Replay, and Ori
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5’s day-one patch is bigger than the game
- Microsoft cuts out the microtransactions from Project Spark game-creation engine
- Twitch’s first convention had more than 20K attendees and 1.9M viewers
- Analyst Michael Pachter predicts a slow death for consoles, but he’s bullish on games
- Rare shows off cancelled Conker game
- PlayStation is one of the most ‘intimate’ brands for millennials
- Mobile megahit Monster Strike is coming to 3DS in Japan this December
- Rise of the Tomb Raider Xbox One bundle comes just in time for the holidays
- Capy Games’ Nathan Vella shares surprising facts about the state of indie games
- EverQuest creator raises seed round to build Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
- Microsoft releases bleak Halo 5: Guardians television commercial
Mobile and social
- Vainglory’s Autumn Season marks the start of its esports tournament calendar
- Kamcord’s mobile livestreaming is growing fast as top broadcasters start calling it home
- Glu reinvents James Bond with a mobile strategy game
- User acquisition costs go up, up, and away in August
- Kill Shot developer Hothead Games opens new studio in Halifax
- Google demos how Chromecast can power gaming on the TV with your smartphone
- Bandura Games launches crowdfunding campaign for RunZoo to encourage peace
- FlowPlay merges casual fantasy sports with poker in 5 Card Draft
- Data reveals iOS 9 adoption is slightly higher among people who spend money on games
- An era closes at Zynga as FarmVille co-creator Mark Skaggs resigns
- Google increases Android app size limit on the Play store from 50MB to 100MB
Previews and interviews
- Smite designer discusses the sweet spot for multiplayer matches and mixing cards and shooters in Paladins
- Smite studio talks about the creator high and making Paladins, a card game-first-person shooter (Part 1 of 2)
- Jordan ‘CaptainSparklez’ Maron lives the fairy tale life of getting paid to play Minecraft (interview)
- Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney on building Bullet Train and the future of virtual reality
Reviews and impressions
- Might and Magic: Heroes VII — avoiding this epic disappointment is your best strategy
- I have a very bad feeling about Disney Infinity’s Rise Against the Empire Play Set
- The worst thing about Tony Hawk Pro Skater 5
- LaserLife is a short but engaging journey of light, sound, and memory
- The Taken King takes Destiny from a joke to an achievement
- FIFA 16 is a bored superstar that should push itself harder to stay on top
- Skylanders Superchargers offers some high-speed fun but hits a few speed bumps
- Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer sends a lightweight love note to series fans