Minecraft has transformed from a game into something more akin to a cultural phenomenon. The game has graced just about every platform out there, even making its way to the Raspberry Pi and the Windows Store as a UWP app.
The latest news now suggests that this game is finally making its way to the Apple TV. When Tim Cook introduced the new Apple TV last year, we were impressed by its potential as a casual gaming platform.
Polygon reports that Tim Cook made the announcement at a corporate event. Cook added that the game will be compatible with the Minecraft Pocket Edition on iOS devices and that players can take their worlds on Apple TV and share them with other players on iOS.
There haven’t been many noteworthy games on the platform; those killer titles like Super Mario Bros or God of War that transform a platform from an also-ran to a must-have. Maybe Minecraft is that title.
The fourth generation Apple TV was unveiled on 15 September 2015. The SoC is an Apple A8 running at 1.5GHz (that’s a little faster than on the iPhone 6) paired with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM and up to 64GB of storage. You can control the Apple TV via an iOS device or using the bundled remote with its in-built accelerometer.
In effect, the hardware can be favourably compared to the iPhone 6, making it a competent, casual gaming platform.
Meet Snowbox, Another Minecraft Server You Can Be a Part Of
The title of this post makes it seem like Snowbox just arrived into the Minecraft server scene. That’s quite the contrary as the server has been around for five years and counting. They just celebrated their fifth-year anniversary this past February. As with any other server, you want to know what makes them special enough to want to join in on the fun. Well, here are a few reasons:
They have players from different parts of the world. This helps for a number of reasons. First, you can make a new friend from another country. Second, you can feel more comfortable knowing someone speaks the same language as you.
They are on version 11 as of this writing. The new version of course has new features including a Lobby Spawn World which provides access to the new worlds part of the update. Other new features include a Members Creative World and two SandBox Worlds where one features a natural landscape allowing players to build castles.
Minecraft servers are generally for those who want to play in multiplayer mode. While you can absolutely build worlds by yourself, there’s a certain fun factor when you get to play with others. This way, you can team up in creating a world with features you’re all interested in.
While an online server does allow you to play Minecraft with others, there’s a catch: the version of your game should match the one on the server. So if you want to join in on the fun, make sure your game’s version matches theirs.
Minecraft has come out with a couple of changes recently which surely delighted their dedicated fan base. And while you can always enjoy solo play, why not change things up a bit and give Snowbox a go?
It is undeniable that Minecraft has become a very popular game which prompted millions of gamers to play the game. Minecraft which is developed at every platform will soon be available in Apple TV. The good news was highly appreciated by Mac users as the announcement was made public just last week.
Apple CEO Tim Cook released the statement in the confidence that Apple will be bringing bigger games into its top box. Minecraft will soon join Apple’s 8,000 apps and games on both consoles and mobile, Engadget reports. It is reported that Minecraft will be soon be accessible by the end of this year.
Minecraft was developed by Microsoft’s Mojang, and to incorporate Minecraft into the Apple TV is a great milestone for the company. This will not be another pocket version of the game, but it will be released specifically as Apple TV edition, Techcrunch reports.
Although Apple will incorporate the same code base, Apple users will be excited to know that there will be new features that will be present in the Apple edition, which will be different from other versions. With the entry of Minecraft, Apple is willing to invest on more appealing games for its users.
Although there are no further announcements on what to expect on the Minecraft Apple version, Apple gamers may possibly want to purchase a third party controller to maximize playing experience, Forbes reports.
In the meantime, avid Minecraft players will have to wait for more updates.
We’ve rebranded our leading Beam.pro stream to Microsoft, Gaming and Libations!
Microsoft, Gaming and Libations (formerly Microsoft, Minecraft and Libations) is a live show hosted on Microsoft’s newly acquired streaming network, Beam.pro. We have recently rebranded the channel to coincide with our desire (and your requests!) to play games beyond Minecraft!
Moving forward, our live streams will take place on Wednesdays, at 6 PM ET (3 PM PT, 10 PM GMT). You can find the start time based on your location and time zone in our event announcer.
We’ll be kicking off our eighth episode of Microsoft, Gaming, and Libations very shortly, where we’ll talk about Microsoft while playing Minecraft, and, well, having a few drinks! Join us in the chat for some big announcements and giveaways.
If you missed our earlier announcement for the full context of what the show is, you can find that here to learn more about the format and plans.
For now, all you need to do is watch the live stream above or head to our Beam channel at Beam.pro/windowscentral when the stream begins where you can jump in on the live chat.
We’ll occasionally field some questions from the audience, so it’s best to sign up for Beam. Plus, doing so will help enter you in our contest to win a Hitman Collector’s Edition, detailed below! We’ll also be giving away spooky Minecraft Halloween skins in the chat during the stream. If you entered last week’s controller giveaway, we’ll post the winners here soon!
For those curious, we’re aiming for a 90-minute air time, but honestly, we have no idea how long it will go. So grab a drink and join in on the fun to find out!
It’s been two years since Microsoft bought Minecraft, and the new owners are faced with a conundrum: what do you do with a game that is already a phenomenon?
Complicating things further, Minecraft is now a seven-year old game. While lot of work has been put into keeping the game current, Minecraft is also beginning to show its age. Mojang developer Nathan Adams compared it to rebuild the engines of a jet in the middle of a flight, because taking the game down to patch it just isn’t an option. The tension at the heart of Minecraft heightens when you consider that the developers say difficulties associated with coding the blocky builder sometimes prevents them from adding features that the community wants, like a working API or a server browser.
I got a chance to suss out the future of Minecraft at last month’s Minecon, where the community rubs elbows with the people who make Minecraft great. Obviously, that description includes the developers, but it also expands farther into the YouTubers who make hilarious videos, the modders who create new ways to play, and the builders, who create wonderful worlds for others to enjoy as well.
This was at the forefront of my mind when I attended Minecon. Minecraft has always been a community-driven game, and I was curious how Mojang would handle that aspect of Minecraft’s identity while also pushing the game into new frontiers.
I met with Saxs Persson, developer for the Pocket and Windows 10 editions of Minecraft, and Matt Booty, head of Minecraft, in nearby Marriott hotel. Persson was dressed casually, in a black shirt and jeans. He came off as enthusiastic, prone to geeking out about new tech or features. Booty on the other hand was dressed in a button-down, slacks and came off as more reserved. They couldn’t have chosen a better pair to represent Minecraft.
“We want everybody to play with everybody,” Persson told me. “Minecraft is better when you can connect to your world wherever you with whatever device.” Windows 10 and Pocket Edition players already enjoy cross-platform play, but Persson paints a picture of complete compatibility – console and Java and Win 10 players all connecting and enjoying Minecraft together. In his ideal world, you’d be able to log on to the same persistent server from your iPad, your computer, and your console—a technical and legal hurdle that has been branched in part by games like Rocket League, but full connectivity across all platforms still seems like a lofty goal for Minecraft.
What’s more, this idea seems to ignore that the various Minecraft editions floating around all have varying features, something that even the biggest Minecraft fan finds annoying. For example, MCPE is still missing The End, but at the same time it will get additions that Java won’t see till later (or ever.) Persson didn’t specifically address version mismatches when I asked if feature parity was still a priority, but he also didn’t seem concerned about potential version conflicts. “There’s not a lot holding us back from connecting these versions, and parity is not the main goal,” he said. There is no doubt that this kind of cross-platform play would be popular and welcomed, but I’m skeptical as to how it would actually work. I’m also not sure it’s a feature that the community truly cares about.
Persson also enthused about “new input methodologies,” specifically the Oculus touch. Actually, VR played a big role in Minecon: the line to try it out was hours long throughout the entire event, and Mojang highlighted it often enough that VR seems to form a centerpiece for Minecraft’s future plans.
Virtual reality is still an incredibly niche technology, and Minecraft’s hallmark has always been its accessibility—you can run the game on pretty much any device. It’s hard to understand how adding a style of play that requires a powerful computer or console and a pricey headset fits with the existing appeal of Minecraft. Community response to VR offerings is and always has been tepid at best, especially among veteran Minecraft players, who remember Notch’s quarrel with Oculus in the past.
For now, most of the YouTubers and map makers and modders attached to Minecraft seem pretty happy with their current arrangement—Mojang is still very relaxed about letting people profit off of their game—but some are starting to see the writing on the wall. Long-time Minecraft YouTubers, such as skitscape and setosorcerer, have been moving on to other games or other careers. Map creators like Hypixel have had to adapt and often abandon single-player maps in favor of multiplayer ones, and the often-ignored mod community is starting to feel the strain of an aging game. Each recent patch has created a new set of problems — a recent one, for example, made many large texture packs unuseable, and while a different patch made PvP unplayable for many. With add-ons and an API still a long way off, frustrations continue to mount for some fans.
Mojang’s vision for the future of the game and the communities’ vision have not always been in line, and you could see the effects of that fissure on the showfloor itself. When I asked how they chose the people that ended up on stage at Minecon—essentially receiving the Mojang stamp of approval—or heading up the panels, Persson and Booty were a little evasive. “There is an active curation [of exhibitors],” Booty said about the people that were invited to attend the event and present, “ranging from trying to stay true to Minecraft’s indie roots to working with corporate partners and everything in between.” This was an obvious nod to the big name partners like Mattel that were taking up large amounts of real estate on the expo floor. There were plenty of indie names and creators features, but their competition was fiercer. The Minecon docket was stacked with young, high energy personalities who curated an atmosphere of fun and excitement—the old guard, like Hypixel and
other creators, were less well represented.
Persson and Booty still recognized, at least in part, the debt that they owed to the the community. “We ask that they come and meet their fans with open arms,” Persson said, “as a true fan event, not just a primarily corporate one.” Persson and the Mojang team seem eager to signal to their fans that they were still the focus of the event and of their efforts, and that the Microsoft buyout still doesn’t indicate a change in direction or an abandonment of their core users. It was a necessary reminder, given that Minecraft’s indie origins made some people deeply skeptical of Microsoft’s purchase, and these same fans have remained guarded even as the company seeks to reassure them.
Regardless, the Mojang team has actually shown that they are listening to the community in some respects. Minecon saw the first full presentation of the add-on system, which allows players to tweak the behavior and statistics of mobs at first, and will eventually allow wide modification of all entities. Players have been asking for something like this as far back as 2011.
“Add-ons are just the first step,” Persson said, confirming that an application program interface, or API, was being co-developed – a feature that would make modding significantly easier. Persson admitted that two previous attempts at creating an API had failed, and that they had brought on the creators of Bukkit–a popular mod utility–to help them make this attempt stick. This may represent a serious commitment to developing an API, but those promises go back as far as 2009. The community remains skeptical after being burned so many times before.
It’s also obvious that Microsoft has invested heavily in making Minecraft more than just a video game. Minecraft’s developers preferred to use words like “platform”, “tool”, and “environment” instead of “game,” and they were effusive about applications for research, education, and machine learning. “At a high level, we want to maintain Minecraft as an innovation brand,” Booty said when asked about his vision for the future of the game. It was a little hard to pin down exactly what they meant by this — it sounds like they want Minecraft to be all things to all people, which, while ambitious, sounds like a recipe for failure.
Despite the abundance of buzzwords, Mojang’s description is a telling indication of Microsoft’s concerns over their $2.5 billion investment. Minecraft is a completely unprecedented phenomenon, and so too is a massive buyout of an indie game by a major corporation. Minecraft has already conquered video games, so it seems natural that Microsoft and Mojang now want to create something that supersedes gaming.
Everyone I talked to at Minecon was excited about exactly one thing—meeting their heroes, whether that was one of the developers, a popular YouTuber, or a modder. As far as the fans are concerned, the future of Minecraft will always be with the people who make the game great, not fancy technology. Mojang has loftier goals, though it’s hard to say if VR and added connectivity truly hold the key to where Minecraft goes next. Then again, predicting the future is no easy task.
Out in Europe and Japan, and coming later today in North America, Minecraft update 1.37 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita adds support for all of the newly released DLC and fixes some issues.
For £1.69, the Halloween Battle Map offers a new Battle Mini Game map built with the Halloween texture set. Also £1.69, the Campfire Tales Skin Pack packs in 16 spooky skins, from mythical monsters to other strange sightings. Then, for £2.49, there’s Battle Map Pack 4, which includes three new maps: “Creep through the deserted, snowbound Dig, slog it out amid the over-sized furniture of Shrunk and hoedown before you showdown in the dusty Frontier.”
If you prefer DLC bundles, you can now pick up the Spooky Bundle for £5.79 to get the Halloween Mash-up, Halloween Battle Map, and Campfire Tales Skin Pack. If you want to spend £13.99 on the Builder’s Pack, you’ll receive these six packs: Biome Settlers Skin Pack 1, Candy Texture Pack, Cartoon Texture Pack, Pattern Texture Pack, Plastic Texture Pack, and Greek Mythology Mash-up.
Here’s the full list of patch notes for Minecraft update 1.37 on PlayStation:
Added Halloween Battle Map.
Added Campfire Tales Skin Pack.
Added Battle Map Pack 4.
Fixes for missing/incorrect tooltips when looking at various blocks and entities.
Fix for Endermen not becoming hostile when a player makes eye contact with them.
Fix for only one of eight Fossil variants generating per world.
Fix for igniting TNT blocks while one is already lit causing them to disappear.
Fix for crash that may occur if the Ender Dragon attacks a group of Zombies.
Stop faster healing due to food saturation in Battle mini game
Updated Battle maps to remove some areas where players could get stuck.
Fix for MCCE 2521 – Shears don’t break web blocks into Web block drop.
Fix for MCCE 2505 – Knocking a Guardian off a height great enough to kill it on falling would cause a crash.
Fix for MCCE-2478 – Oak and Iron Doors Items have the wrong texture in the Inventory.
Fix for MCCE-2420: Sub Account Content Restriction. (PS4 only)
The new update is also available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U.
Expect all of the DLC to be available in North America following the update. Read more at http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/10/25/minecraft-update-1-37-today-ps4-ps3-ps-vita-adds-dlc-support/#bBO0xj69OoIGqqtp.99
