GamesBeat weekly roundup: Call of Duty: Ghosts, Xbox One, Angry Birds in Puzzles & Dragons

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:

• Check out how slimy Sylvester Stallone is in this Rambo: The Video Game trailer

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:

• Tale of a nearly 40-year-old Pokémon virgin