Minecraft News | Stone Marshall-Author

Announcing: Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta

by Stone Marshall | Jul 8, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Hello!

We have exciting news to share! A whole new version of Minecraft is on its way. This time, it’s for Windows 10 – Microsoft’s new swanky operating system that’s due for release on July 29th.

We’re calling it Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta.

Just like the first release of Minecraft all those years ago, this version will develop and evolve over time with the help of your feedback. That’s why it has “Beta” in the title – because it’s not quite finished, and will become even more fun over time. Just like the other versions of Minecraft, all future updates will be free. We spoil you. We really do.

If you’re one of the 20 million(!) players who have the PC edition of Minecraft (referred to by techy people as the Java version) you’ll be able to download Windows 10 Edition Beta from the Windows 10 store for free. Other players can get it for the paltry price of $10 during the beta period (the length of which is still being decided).

Minecraft is available on Windows, Mac, Windows Phone, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PS Vita, and now, Windows 10. Not every version of Minecraft is exactly the same, but they all feature two distinct game modes – Creative and Survival – that cater to different types of players. All versions of Minecraft support multiplayer.

You’ll recognise some Pocket Edition features in Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta, along with potpourri of cool extras. Here are some highlights:

Craft, create, and explore online with up to seven friends playing Windows 10 Edition Beta, through local multiplayer or with your Xbox Live friends online.
Play online and local multiplayer with other Pocket Edition players thanks to a free update, due to arrive soon after launch.
Multiple control schemes! Switch between controller, touch, and keyboard controls with little to no effort!
Record and share gameplay highlights with built-in GameDVR.
Help shape the future of Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta with our built player feedback mechanisms!
Chickens, zombies, pigs, boats, armed skeletons, potatoes, zombies, baby squids, enchantment tables, villagers, naked sheep, iron golems, potions, ghasts, pickaxes, carrots, and all the weird and wonderful goodness you’ve come to expect from Minecraft.

We hope you’re as excited as us for Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta. It’s gonna be cool!

Thanks for reading!

Owen

*Oh, and while we’re here, don’t forget to read the easy-to-understand legalese featured below…

The “Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition” beta will be available for download in the Windows 10 Store beginning July 29. Players who already have the PC edition of “Minecraft” will be able to download the Windows 10 beta version free. Others can download “Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition” at a discounted price of $10 throughout the beta period. Players who download “Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition” during the beta phase will still have the game when it comes out of beta, and receive all future updates to the game at no additional cost.

Announcing: Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta

Minecraft reaches 20 million sales on PC and Mac

by Stone Marshall | Jul 5, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Commentators thought everyone interested in Minecraft had already bought it when Microsoft aquired Mojang last year, but the sales are still rolling in.

When Microsoft bought the free-form exploration and building game Minecraft along with Mojang, the studio behind it, for a gobsmacking $US2.5 billion last year, many industry commentators questioned their wisdom.

There was no doubt that Minecraft was popular — this is a game that sold four million before it was even officially released, after all — but $US2.5 billion is an enormous amount of money. At the time Microsoft finalised their sizeable purchase, the game had sold 60 million copies across all platforms, worldwide.

How much more could this investment be expected to grow?

We now have our answer: a lot more, and it shows no signs of slowing. This week the Minecraft website reported that the game had reached another sales milestone: 20 million on PC and Mac. Even though it went on sale way back in 2011, around a quarter of those sales occurred in the past year.

Amazingly the number is on top of the more than 20 million copies sold across Xbox platforms and another 20 million on mobile and tablet devices. Mojang and Microsoft continue to update Minecraft and offer it on more platforms: it is already on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and even Sony’s PS Vita handheld system.

A large part of Minecraft’s popularity is that it is child-friendly. It is used in school teaching programs, and many parents play it with their children.

Parents will also have noticed the plethora of Minecraft merchandise on store shelves last Christmas season, a trend that will no doubt be repeated this year. Expect more action figures, plush toys, and even Minecraft Lego when the gift-shopping season begins.

Microsoft certainly took a risk paying such an enormous sum, but less than a year later the signs are already good that their investment was a wise one.

Minecraft reaches 20 million sales on PC and Mac

Microsoft launches site for teachers taking Minecraft into the classroom

by Stone Marshall | Jul 5, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Minecraft in Education portal aims to get educators sharing tips on how Mojang’s popular game can be used to teach children

Children are playing Minecraft in their millions, but can they also learn from it? Photograph: Voisin/Phanie/REX/Voisin/Phanie/REX

Millions of children are already playing Minecraft at home, whether on computers, consoles or mobile devices. Now the game’s parent company Microsoft wants to encourage more teachers to use it in the classroom.

Microsoft, which bought the game’s developer Mojang for $2.5bn in 2014, has launched a new site aimed at teachers, aiming to foster a community of educators swapping lesson plans and other tips based on Minecraft.

The new site was announced by Microsoft’s vice president of worldwide education Anthony Salcito, complete with a list of some of the ways schools are already incorporating Minecraft into their lessons.

“Elementary students in Seattle are learning foundational math skills by calculating perimeter, area and volume in Minecraft during a Saturday math program. Middle school students in Los Angeles are learning about major world religions as part of their humanities class. They are visiting sacred sites in their city, researching international sites and then building them in Minecraft.
Alfriston College students in New Zealand are partnering with Auckland War Memorial Museum to learn the history of the New Zealand people who served in the 1915 Gallipoli campaign by re-creating the landscape in Minecraft, block by block. Middle schoolers are learning the building blocks of computer science in an online Minecraft coding camp. Elementary students in Scotland are learning about city planning and engineering by reimaging, redesigning and then building in Minecraft what they think Dundee waterfront should look like.”

Mojang has sold more than 70m copies of Minecraft across all platforms since the game’s launch in 2009, with the game becoming a firm favourite among children as well as the adult gamers it was originally aimed at.

Minecraft has also spawned a thriving network of YouTube channels, including one – run by British creator Joseph “Stampy” Garrett – that recently launched an educational show called Wonder Quest filmed within the game.

Other educational projects involving Minecraft include MinecraftEdu, a separate version of Minecraft with features designed for schools, and its own community of educators swapping tips on how to use it.

In 2013, Google worked with MinecraftEdu and Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter to launch a mod called qCraft that used Minecraft to teach children about quantum computing. Meanwhile, a project announced in March 2015 will see MinecraftEdu supplied to every secondary school in Northern Ireland.

Microsoft’s launch of the Minecraft in Education site comes days before Minecon, Mojang’s annual conference for all things Minecraft. Microsoft will be one of the exhibitors at the two-day event in London, where several panel sessions will focus on Minecraft’s role in schools.

Microsoft launches site for teachers taking Minecraft into the classroom

Microsoft Putting Up Portal to Support ‘Minecraft’ Use in the Classroom

by Stone Marshall | Jul 4, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Microsoft seems to believe that their popular open world building game “Minecraft” has a huge potential in education. This belief is apparently fuelled by actual experiences of classroom teachers who have used or are using the game to foster creative thinking and help kids in class learn better through technology.

According to a report in Tech Times, it is because of these experiences that Microsoft is setting up a portal where teachers and educators can share examples of what they are doing in the classroom and how they are using the game as a tool for teaching and learning.

The Microsoft in Education team is going to launch a new forum called Minecraft in Education specifically for this purpose. Elementary school teachers who use the game to teach mathematical concepts such as area, perimeter and volume can post what kind of activities they ask their students to do. Middle school teachers who come up with a more interesting way to teach history or ancient civilizations through the game may also share how they do it. College professors who have explored how groups of students can collaborate on a Minecraft-based project may also have something interesting to post as well.

The game’s open world sandbox gameplay allows its players and in this case, the students to do whatever they want within educational parameters of course. The report said that the “only limit in the game is the user’s imagination” thereby allowing students to “reimagine art, master problem-solving skills and explore their own creativity.” Given the game’s possible use in collaborative building projects, it also fosters communication and problem-solving skills among the students.

Minecraft is just one of the tools that the company wants educators to use in the classroom. This and other technology tools such as Office 365 and Bing Pulse will be showcased by the company during the International Society for Technology in Education Conference in Philadelphia from June 29 to July 1.

Microsoft Putting Up Portal to Support ‘Minecraft’ Use in the Classroom

LittleBigPlanet meets Minecraft! Minecon capes!

by Stone Marshall | Jul 2, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Hello! I bring DLC news for console players. Read on for the info.

LittleBigPlanet meets Minecraft! (Playstation editions only)

Good news for LittleBigPlanet fans on Sony’s consoles! A brand-new mash-up pack featuring Sackboy, Sackgirl OddSock, Toggle, Swoop and many more, is on its way to Minecraft on PlayStation.

Mash up packs let you change the way Minecraft looks. This one lets you LittleBigPlanet-ify your Minecraft world with textures, characters and creatures from Media Molecule’s adorable platformer. It even comes with a pre-build landscape and some catchy tunes taken straight from the game. What more could a Little Big Minecrafter possibly want?

The LittleBigPlanet Mash-up pack will be available to download from July 1st. It’ll cost £3.29/€3.99.

The Minecon 2015 Skin Pack (All console editions)

Even more DLC news for y’all! To celebrate the awesomeness that is next week’s Minecon 2015, we’re releasing a free bundle of skins for both Sony and Microsoft consoles. This pack is extra-special because it features Alex and Steve wearing a selection of smart capes.

The Minecon 2015 Skin Pack will be available for just 15 days from the 1st of July onwards. Download it from Xbox Live Marketplace/PSN while it’s still hot. You’ve got nothing to lose but your bandwidth!

Have a great week, everyone!

LittleBigPlanet meets Minecraft! Minecon capes!

Minecraft PS4 Adds The Simpsons DLC This Week

by Stone Marshall | Jun 30, 2015 | Minecraft News | 0 comments

Following its release back in February for Xbox consoles, Microsoft and Mojang announced today that they will release The Simpsons DLC for the PlayStation versions of Minecraft later this week.

The Simpsons skin pack comes with the entire Simpsons family, along with other figures from the long-running animated TV show, including Seymour Skinner, Otto, Üter, Groundskeeper Willie, and music teacher Dewey Largo, among many others.

It’s expected to become available when the PlayStation Store refreshes tomorrow, April 28.

The full list of Simpsons characters available through the $3 pack is below. This expansion is specifically focused on the Simpsons family itself and Springfield Elementary School characters, suggesting further character skin packs could come later.

In other Minecraft news, Mojang has announced that, in an effort to give players more diversity options, all console versions of the game are being updated with a new female character skin called Alex.

“Now, everyone loves Steve–he’s probably the most famous minecrafter in the world, and has excellent stubble,” Mojang said in a post on its website. “But jolly old Steve doesn’t really represent the diversity of our playerbase. For that reason, we’re giving all players opportunity to play with an Alex skin instead. She brings thinner arms, redder hair, and a ponytail.”

Alex, already available on PC, will come to all console versions of Minecraft this coming Wednesday.

In addition, Mojang has rolled out new achievements for the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft, which–until now–had fewer achievements than the Xbox One edition. “That’s a bit silly when you think about it,” Mojang said. The new update will add 30 new achievements, which together elevate the game to a total gamerscore of 1,000.

Finally, Mojang has also updated the Xbox 360 version of Minecraft with more music tracks.

The Simpsons Skin Pack Includes:

Homer Simpson
Marge Simpson
Bart Simpson
Lisa Simpson
Maggie Simpson
Principal Seymour Skinner
Mrs. Edna Krabappel
Groundskeeper Willie
Otto Mann
Milhouse Van Houten
Nelson Muntz
Jimbo Jones
Ralph Wiggum
Martin Prince
Kearney
Dolph
Wendell
Database
Üter
Janey Powell
Superintendent Gary Chalmers
Mr. Dewey Largo
Sherri
Terri

Minecraft PS4 Adds The Simpsons DLC This Week

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