GamesBeat weekly roundup: Super Mario Maker’s a hit, and inside the canceled South Park game

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

Above: Tomb Raider-rific.

Image Credit: Microsoft

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

From VentureBeat

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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

Above: Hi-Rez Studios looks to emulate Smite’s PC success — where it’s the No. 3 multiplayer online battle arena, or MOBA — on Xbox One.

Image Credit: Hi-Rez Studios

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