It seems that VR is the next big thing, with such big companies as Facebook and Microsoft heavily supporting it. Gaming is definitely going to be amazing and here at WindowsReport everybody is excited where this is going to lead in the near future.
Minecraft Windows 10 Edition coming to the Oculus Rift
Microsoft recently made quite a couple of gaming announcement, and one of them involves Minecraft, which is also their game since they’ve acquired Mojang a while back.
Microsoft and Mojang are teaming up with Oculus in order to provide the first-ever demos of Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition on Oculus Rift. Thus, users will be able to Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition in Creative or Survival mode in full 3D using the Xbox One controller that ships with every Oculus Rift.
We’ve known since the beginning of last summer that Oculus Rift will ship with an Xbox One controller in the beginning of 2016, and now it seems that Minecraft is among the first games you will be able to play. However, you should know that Minecraft is one of the 100 games which will be made available by the end of 2016 for the VR headset.
Have a look below at a gameplay of Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition on Oculus Rift and let us know by leaving your comment at the end whether this is something you’d be interested in playing or you’re going to wait for more immersive games.
Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition with Oculus Rift support will be available through the Windows Store and Oculus Store this spring, and we’ll make sure to keep you update as to when exactly that happens.
Minecraft on the Xbox turns 4 today and to celebrate, Microsoft is giving away some goodies to all its fans on either the Xbox 360 or the Xbox One.
To commemorate the milestone, the company is offering up 4 Skin Packs to spice up your game. All packs represent the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th birthdays of the game. We understand that outside of the 4th Skin Pack, the others are just an added bonus and will only be available for download until May 16, 2016.
We’re not certain how long the 4th Skin Pack will be available for, but it is not forever. Here’s what Microsoft had to say via its Xbox News outlet:
It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since Minecraft arrived on Xbox consoles, and we’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We all know birthdays call for a celebration and we want to make sure that you can dress up for the occasion, so starting today through May 16 you’ll be able to download the 4th Birthday Skin Pack for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Minecraft: Xbox One Edition for free.
It still feels like yesterday Minecraft was first released on the Xbox 360, and this is probably due to how successful the game has become since then — and how much successful it still is now. This is a game that is on almost all major platforms with players of every age.
Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 6 – ‘A Portal to Mystery’ is now available on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 for download. This is the first of three add-ons designed to be played by those with the original series.
The original series launched to much fanfare, but did not go on to become that memorable in the long run. The games are good, but not great, though our opinion will no doubt differ when compared to others out there.
Here’s the full description of the title:
As Jesse, you’ll embark on a perilous adventure across the Overworld, through the Nether, to the End, and beyond. You and your friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect; slayers of the Ender Dragon. While at EnderCon in hopes of meeting Gabriel the Warrior, you and your friends discover that something is wrong… something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and you must set out on a quest to find The Order of the Stone if you are to save your world from oblivion.
For those interested, Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 6 – ‘A Portal to Mystery’ will cost games a cool $4.99 for each individual episode. Folks seeking the full experience can purchase the Adventure Pass for $14.99 USD that includes this episode and others.
Minecraft is one of the most played video games around the world today. It came on the scene for the first time back in 2011 as a PC exclusive, then managed to find its way on the Xbox 360 before hitting the current generation of consoles. Versions of the game can now be found on mobile devices, with a much anticipated HoloLens in development now.
There’s also the Battle Mini Game coming to the console version of Minecraft in the future. Furthermore, if you’re a Nintendo Wii U owner, you can enjoy the exclusive Super Mario theme available for Minecraft on that console.
Being the new owner of Minecraft, Microsoft is looking to make as much out of this franchise before. Don’t believe us? There’s a live-action movie in the works, so that alone should be proof enough of Microsoft’s intentions.
The new Minecraft game can be purchased here via the Xbox Store.
Microsoft wants to get Minecraft into schools, and it’s starting by trying to get teachers on board. Minecraft: Education Edition, which was announced in January, goes into an open beta today that’s meant to let teachers try it out before the game’s public launch in September. Microsoft’s hope is that teachers will use Minecraft as a way to help younger students engage with lessons, allowing them to, for example, step into a blocky re-creation of a historical world or a scenario from a book.
Minecraft: Education Edition is almost identical to standard Minecraft, but it includes a handful of features designed for the classroom. A couple smaller features were announced in January — like an in-game camera for taking screenshots — and some more substantial ones are being announced today. That includes adding in-game chalkboards that can display large blocks of text and letting teachers place characters that’ll say things when a student walks up to them.
Microsoft
The biggest new feature won’t come until September, when the game launches. It’s called Classroom Mode, and it’s essentially a control panel for teachers. Teachers will be able to use the interface to grant resources to students, view where everyone is on a map, send chat messages, and teleport people to specific places, which will be useful should students run off or get lost.
Teachers will be able to use Minecraft: Education Edition for free until September. At that point, Microsoft will begin licensing it to schools for anywhere from $1 to $5 per student for a year’s use. There remains a very legitimate question around how effective Minecraft is as an educational tool — teachers have to learn the game and figure out ways to make gameplay educational, largely without Microsoft’s help — but the fact that kids are excited to play Minecraft may be enough to make it worthwhile.
Microsoft has made the early-access version of Minecraft: Education Edition free for teachers for a limited time, as the tech company prepares for the game’s September release.
The Education Edition of Minecraft bridges the building block game to the world of academia, leveraging a host of new features that facilitate or cater to the learning experience.
Unique to this edition are in-game chalkboards and non-playable characters, both of which can be customized by educators to act as guides and guideposts for students exploring the game world.
The Education Edition also has a “simple, secure sign-in” to ensure the security and privacy of the game’s users, an essential feature for software that works with personal data from minors.
And because teachers just love diaries and portfolios, Minecraft: Education Edition includes tools for creating both.
“Another important aspect of Minecraft in education is being able to collect evidence of learning in the game, and being able to demonstrate student progression,” says Microsoft. “The camera and portfolio features allow students to take screenshots of their work and document the development of their projects.”
Features in the pipeline for the Education Edition include a Classroom Mode user interface, which helps teachers map out their students in the game and provides a list-view alternative. Microsoft is also working on teleporting abilities and a chat window.
To get started with the early-access version of the game, educators will need to sign up for a free Office 365 account on the Minecraft: Education Edition website using a school email address. They will then have access to a digital download of the game, which requires hardware running either Windows 10 or OS X El Capitan.
And for those concerned about possible technical pitfalls, take it from Steve Isaacs, a game design and development teacher at William Annin Middle School, who reports that the game was easy to set up.
“Within 45 minutes of the download being provided to me, I was able to get it installed and my students logged in and [started] playing in a world together,” Isaacs says. “No server setup, or networking configuration required.”
The arrival of the early-access version follows the 14-puzzle Minecraft tutorial that Microsoft released last December as part of the annual Hour of Code event encouraging elementary school students to learn code.
The puzzles were meant to introduce educators to Minecraft’s potential in the classroom. Microsoft followed up the puzzles with daily challenges, which would task students with using code to reconstruct challenge images inside the game.
Some kids like Minecraft so much that they’re willing to get graded on how well they play the game.
Elena Rezac, a 13-year-old at William Annin Middle School in New Jersey, even prefers playing at school to playing at home.
“You have to do your best,” the seventh grader told CNNMoney. “It ends up being way better than what you do at home.”
That’s because there isn’t really a “point” to Minecraft. The video game lets players build virtual worlds out of blocks, and sometimes there are zombie or animal attacks. But at school, students can use Minecraft to create their own games and story lines.
Rezac has spent the past few weeks building a quest-driven maze inspired by “The Fifth Wave,” a science fiction movie about earth after an alien attack.
The main character of her game is Ella, one of 10 human survivors trying to protect the earth’s plants from being destroyed by aliens.
Rezac really wanted to take game design and development as an elective because it would allow her to work on multiple things at a time. She said, for example, that in art, she would only be able to paint a picture. But computer science is “a lot more fun because you can do whatever you want.”
Her teacher Steve Isaacs agrees and says he likes Minecraft because it allows students to be inventive. His class was one of the beta testers for Microsoft’s new program Minecraft: Education Edition.
“They can find an area where they can succeed,” said Isaacs, a 24-year teaching veteran. “That’s why I give so much choice.”
Students who take his elective have to write a design document that outlines the objectives and rules of their MInecraft game. Then they spend several weeks creating the game and get points for what they build. An A+ means 700 points.
Rezac says she doesn’t think too much about how to get a good grade. Competition among classmates doesn’t really exist either because everyone builds their own version. “It’s more fun [this way],” she said.
Elena Rezac, of William Annin Middle School, has been beta testing Microsoft’s Minecraft: Education Edition.
Microsoft(MSFT, Tech30) is pinning a lot of hope on Minecraft as a way to break into the education sector. The game’s massive popularity with kids (and adults) is one of the major reasons that the software giant bought Mojang, Minecraft’s developer, for $2.5 billion two years ago.
On Thursday, Microsoft announced that schools and teachers can download a special education version of the game for free. The company also added several new features to the game that make it easier for teachers to give feedback, as well as classroom collaboration tools and a simpler setup process.
A full version of Microsoft: Education Edition will go on sale in September and costs school districts an average of $1 to $5 per player each year. About 1,700 students participated in the beta program.
Rezac has been playing Minecraft since she was eight. CNNMoney met her and Isaacs at a recent Microsoft event promoting the game. Three eighth grade boys we talked to said they have been playing for about five years as well.
Tom Ruggiero, a 14-year-old in Isaacs’ class, said he likes Minecraft because it involves more variables and therefore more freedom to create.
His classmate Ethan Otash, also 14, agreed and said the game teaches skills such as engineering. After learning the basics, students can make the game more complex.
Because Minecraft is so customizable, Isaacs said aging out of the game isn’t likely.
“There’s a sweet spot,” he said. “But that sweet spot is huge.”
Microsoft
