news | Stone Marshall-Author

Minecraft adds free female avatar to console versions

These are the Alexes I know, I know, these are the Alexes I know.
Minecraft

This week, Minecraft on all Xbox and PlayStation consoles will receive an update. While some of the new features will vary between the two platforms, they will all share one new addition in common: a free set of female “skins” for the game’s main character.

The “Alex” skin pack, which launched on the PC version in August and the mobile version in December, will broaden the default options for the game’s avatar for all console players on Wednesday. Alex’s default style is a mess of red hair tied up in a ponytail that has been drawn in such a way that it appears as pixels on her shoulder. Alex, just like the male “Steve” character before her, comes in eight versions in all, which means Alex also gets a “boxer,” “cyclist,” and even “Scottish” style. (There’s one exception: “Tuxedo Steve” is balanced with “Pantsuit Alex.”)

This news follows last week’s Temple Run 2 update, which added the series’ first free default female character. These changes come after a 12-year-old girl wrote a Washington Post story in March in which she concluded that most popular “endless runner” games on iOS and Android forced users to pay if they wanted to switch from a male character to a female one—and that over half of the games didn’t offer female characters at all. As that author concluded, “these biases affect young girls like me. The lack of girl characters implies that girls are not equal to boys and they don’t deserve characters that look like them.”

On Wednesday, PlayStation versions of Minecraft will also get the Simpsons skin pack that launched on Xbox in January, while the Xbox 360 version will be updated with more of the songs that newer-gen versions have already had for some time. (And if you care, there are more 360 achievements as well).

Minecraft adds free female avatar to console versions

Minecraft Scores The Most YouTube Views Last Month By A Wide Margin

Newzoo and Octoly have begun tracking what games on YouTube are attracting the most views. The two companies have created a list that breaks down their total views, their share of the top 20 games on YouTube, and how the content breaks down between official sources and fan-made videos.

You can go to Newzoo’s website to see the full list, but the top ten games are as follows.

1. Minecraft – 3.934 billion views
2. Grand Theft Auto – 1.393 billion views
3. Five Nights At Freddy’s – 1.273 billion views
4. Call of Duty – 851 million views
5. FIFA – 770 million views
6. Garry’s Mod – 690 million views
7. League of Legends – 667 million views
8. Mario – 547 million views
9. Counter-Strike – 362 million views
10. Dota 2 – 282 million views

Minecraft Scores The Most YouTube Views Last Month By A Wide Margin

Australian Government Invites Minecraft Fans To Design National Park

The next Australian national park could be designed by Minecraft fans, in a new project by the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges natural-resources management board.

The South Australian State Government is inviting young fans to design their ideal national park via the sandbox game Minecraft.

The winning designs will guide the next national-park upgrades in the area, worth around $10 million. The competition is open for upper primary school students in years four, five, six, and seven in Adelaide and Adelaide Hills. Participants will be judged on their design’s sustainability and realism. This could include bike trails, wheelchair accessibility, and campsites. To be considered, all entries must include five screenshots of their creation and a short three-minute narrated video clip of the scene.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition 0.11 Beta 6 Released

Mojang have just released a brand new beta build of Minecraft: Pocket Edition, version 0.11.0 beta 6.

The news was announced Johan Bernhardsson, a game developer at Mojang, who has been working on Minecraft: Pocket Edition. Speaking on the social networking website Twitter, Bernhardsson simply revealed that “Beta 6 released” followed by “still no skin packs but we are working on them.”

Despite skin packs not being included the team is one step closer, as a new feature that has been added is the “skin selection player model rotation”. The only other new feature is that players are now able to swap the items then have equipped on the selection bar.

According to Tommaso Checchi Mojang hasn’t managed to fix as many this as they had hoped; commenting “MCPE build 6 is out! We’ve all been part of those ‘large team’ talks so it doesn’t fix too many things, though”. The meetings Checchi is speaking of are synchronization talks between the Mojang team and those based in Redmond who are also working on Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

Here’s a complete list of bug fixes that are included in Build 0.11.0 beta 6:

Fixed items in chest not saving when quitting
Creative/survival mode change works again
Always Day switch works again
Edited world names are now saved
Corrected entity duplication in multiplayer
Spawned players will now have the correct rotation without interpolation
Creative list was incorrect sometimes after connecting to a server
Fixed a cause of lag on the world list under slow networks
Fixed possible attacks by servers on server list
Fixed crash after death and respawning multiple times
Fixed crash when disconnecting from server
Riding non-existent entities on multiplayer could crash the game
Bubble meter no longer gets reset on death screen

Name the Princess!

Hello! We’re running a poll and we need votes from you guys. We are naming the Princess in the upcoming Legends & Heroes series. The vote has a countdown and runs through the end of day Wednesday. Please cast your votes!!

Xbox Sales Fall in Latest Quarter, But Minecraft and Xbox Live are Bright Spots

Minecraft to the rescue.

Microsoft on Thursday reported earnings for the quarter ended March 31, announcing that the company shipped (i.e. sold to retailers) 1.6 million Xbox consoles, which includes Xbox 360 and Xbox One, during the period. This compares to a combined shipment tally of 2 million consoles during the same period last year.

Total Xbox shipments have now fallen for a second straight quarter, as Microsoft moved 6.6 million combined Xbox consoles during the all-important holiday season this year, compared to 7.4 million during the same quarter the year prior.

Microsoft’s Computer and Gaming Hardware division, which houses the Xbox business, saw its revenue fall $72 million, or 4 percent.

The company attributed the downturn primarily to “lower revenue from Xbox Platform,” but offset by higher revenue from Microsoft’s Surface line.

Xbox Platform revenue itself decreased $306 million or 24 percent; as mentioned above, total console volume fell by 20 percent. Microsoft also noted that the lower price of the Xbox One in the quarter compared to the same period a year prior further led to the decline.

Cost of revenue for Microsoft’s Computer and Gaming decision decreased, led by a $265 million (27 percent) decline in Xbox Platform cost of revenue. This was driven by a lower volume of units shipped and a lower cost per console sold, Microsoft said.

It wasn’t all bad news for Microsoft this quarter, however. Microsoft reports that Xbox Live and other store revenue increased by $144 million, or 32 percent, compared to last year. This was driven by an increase in Xbox Live users and revenue per user, the company said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft first-party game sales were up 49 percent during the quarter, led by Minecraft. This is the second straight quarter since Microsoft acquired Minecraft last year that the sandbox game has been a major contributor to Microsoft’s first-party bottom line.

For Microsoft overall, the company posted $21.7 billion in revenue, up from $20.4 billion during the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, profit for the quarter was $4.9 billion, down from $5.6 billion last year.

Microsoft will hold an earnings call later today to discuss these results and answer analyst questions. Check back later for more.