If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.
This week, the GamesBeat staff takes an in-depth look at the Xbox One’s launch lineup Activision blames Pokémon and Disney for lagging Skylanders Swap Force sales, and Puzzle & Dragons developer GungHo teams up with Rovio to bring Angry Birds into its game.
You’ll also find reviews for PlayJam’s GameStick console and Call of Duty: Ghosts (along with news about its $1 billion day) as well as previews for Ryse: Son of Rome, Forza 5, and Dead Rising 3.
News:
- The DeanBeat: The powers that be show how Washington D.C. views the game business
- Exclusive shots of Hauppauge’s HD PVR Rocket portable gameplay recorder (Gallery)
- Mathematical! New Adventure Time game coming to mobile this winter (first screenshot)
- Grand Theft Auto V’s stars are good antiheroes whether we like them or not
- PlayStation 4 comes with free stuff
- Three lessons the industry could learn from successful independents
- Watch the Xbox One and Kinect in action in this ‘magical’ video demo
- Highlights of Nvidia’s analyst call: Outlook weaker, but car and mobile markets look promising
- All those wonderful toys: Infinity helps boost Disney Interactive revenue by $250M
- Planetside 2 set to launch in e-sports haven South Korea soon
- Bringin’ waggle back: Nintendo launches Wii Sports Club for Wii U
- Bigpoint has high hopes for its Merc Elite modern-combat battle arena game
- World of Warcraft down another 100,000 subscribers (updated)
- How the Xbox One launch titles stack up against Sony’s PlayStation 4 lineup
- NBA Live 14 vs. NBA 2K14: Finding the king of the next-gen court
- Activision: Call of Duty: Ghosts is GameStop’s ‘most pre-reserved next-gen title’
- Moonshot: How Kerbal Space Program’s creator launched an indie darling from out of nowhere
- Finnish friends: Rovio’s Angry Birds are teaming up with developer GungHo to appear in Puzzle & Dragons
Above: Angry Birds and Puzzle & Dragons together.
Image Credit: GungHo Online Entertainment
Announcements and reveals:
- Mixamo debuts Fuse character creation tool on Steam using Valve’s Team Fortress 2 characters
- Activision boasts it already sold-in $1 billion worth of Call of Duty: Ghosts to retail
- Land Rover’s new ad gambit uses gaming to turn potential customers into buyers
- Call of Duty players have destroyed $3.4 quadrillion in drones, respawned 267K times the Earth’s population, and play 1,900 combined years daily
Mobile news:
- Puzzle & Dragons surpasses 2M downloads in North America as GungHo works to match Japanese success
- Plain Vanilla’s QuizUp for iPhone will be the ‘biggest trivia game in the world’
- Badgeville’s 5.0 platform is aimed at gamifying the world’s largest companies
- Disney’s Star Wars: Tiny Death Star game launches on mobile
- Playstudios launches MyVegas Slots mobile game with real-world rewards at MGM properties
- Agawi offering platform for streaming apps via Amazon Web Services
- PlayPhone’s deal with Asian telecom puts its mobile-gaming portal in front of 480M customers
GamesBeat 2013:
- The who’s who of gaming at GamesBeat 2013 (photo gallery)
- Couldn’t attend GamesBeat 2013? Check out the Twitch archives of every session
Above: Tiny Death Star from Disney — it even has a tiny Bossk!
Image Credit: Disney
Tech:
- PS4 will not lack diversions: Launching with 11 entertainment apps (but not HBO Go)
- Nvidia launches new high-end graphics card for playing PC games in 4K
- Check out how Xbox One uses Kinect to redeem product code in seconds
- Amazon embraces cloud gaming (and other 3D graphics applications)
- Nvidia to give $100K prize to most innovative GPU startup
- AMD launches its screaming-fast R9 290 graphics card
All this funding:
- Creator of the original Madden NFL Football launches Kickstarter for Indie Sports Network
- Get a grip! Tactical Haptics launches Kickstarter campaign for ‘reactive grip’ game controller
- Betable raises $18.5M for real-money gambling mobile platform
- MediaSpike raises $5.2M from army of investors for in-game ads
- Myst creator Cyan aims for $1.1M goal on Kickstarter for its Obduction game
Earnings:
- Highlights of Nvidia’s analyst call: Outlook weaker, but car and mobile markets look promising
- All those wonderful toys: Infinity helps boost Disney Interactive revenue by $205M
- Activision blames Xbox One, PS4, Disney, and Pokémon — basically, everything but Obama — for Skylanders’ dipping sales
- Activision Blizzard’s CEO believes next-generation console prices will come down faster than ever before
- Activision Blizzard beats earnings expectations as digital revenues grow
- PlayStation 3 sells 80M units: Not bad but far short of 150M PS2 sales
Trailer hoedown:
Reviews:
- GameStick: The cheaper Android console alternative that’s great for kids (review)
- Call of Duty: Ghosts isn’t as good as last year’s Black Ops II — or Battlefield 4 (review)
Above: Forza 5’s damage engine is entertaining to witness, but clean driving will benefit your Drivatar best.
Image Credit: Turn 10 Studios
Previews:
- Ryse: Son of Rome isn’t Xbox One’s God of War and that’s OK (preview)
- Dead Rising 3: Single-player is better with Xbox SmartGlass and a friend (preview)
- How Forza Motorsport 4 built Forza Motorsport 5 (preview)
Interviews:
- Microsoft’s Phil Spencer tells why Xbox One games will make us salivate (interview)
- Crytek stayed true to the vision of hair-trigger combat in Ryse: Son of Rome (interview)
- How Microsoft’s Turn 10 fashioned the A.I. for cars in Forza Motorsport 5 (interview)
- Microsoft weighs in on Valve’s living room strategy, admits Windows gaming should be like Steam (interview)
- DICE’s Thomas Andersson on what sets Battlefield 4 apart from Call of Duty on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (interview)
Pieces of flair: