The most recent installment of Inside Xbox revealed some of the most glorious news Halo fans have been waiting for – The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC. While we don’t know exactly when the collection will be making its way to the platform, we do know a few other details, including the fact that it will also be available on Steam. According to Valve founder Gabe Newell, however, the credit should go entirely to Xboss Phil Spencer and the Microsoft team, who are apparently responsible for making Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam happen.
Newell has been up chipping away at fan emails recently, one of which has seemingly possibly (but probably not really) confirmed a new Half-Life game. More on that here. The one we’re here to talk about is from Reddit user ZagTheWag, who asked the Valve boss if it was a simple process of working with 343 Industries and Microsoft to get Halo on Steam. To this, Newell said, “The credit for this goes to Phil Spencer and his team at MS. They made it happen, so, yes, it was simple for us.”
Speaking to PC Gamer recently, Spencer noted that Microsoft is venturing more into the realm of PC gaming in 2019. “We know we have to move forward, informed by our past, with the unique wants, needs and challenges of the PC player at the center of decisions we make,” he said. “I know we’ve talked quite a bit over time about what we want to deliver for the player on PC, but at E3 this year, and throughout 2019, you’ll begin to see where we’ve been investing to deliver across Store, services, in Windows and in great games. It’s just the beginning.”
What better way to really kick that movement into gear than with the Master Chief himself? As stated above, it’s unknown when The Master Chief Collection is set to arrive on Steam and the Microsoft Store, but when it does, it will be in installments. You can read more about that right here.
What do you think about this? If Phil Spencer was able to get Halo on Steam, could he work some magic on a possible Half-Life3? Sound off in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @anarkE7!
When one kimono design tried to get a little artsy with a vibrant green “mosaic” design, it accidentally became pretty much the best piece of Minecraft merch on the market. Now it just needs an Enderman in the background and a block of TNT, and this would legitimately be the best thing to hitMinecraftsince Minecraft. Even if it was accidental.
(Photo: 9Gag)
While I couldn’t find the actual source of the kimono (yeah, I was tempted to buy it), I did see this while perusing 9gag for my daily dose of WTF. It’s not just that it’s pixelated either, it’s the exact color match of the Creepers in Minecraft, and in the exact perfect design? Maybe it was an inside joke, or maybe I’m wrong and this wasn’t a mosaic line (which is what several people over on the 9gag thread mentioned), but whatever the case may be, I’ll take 10.
In other Minecraft news (in actual news), the beloved building game is officially making its way to the Xbox Game Pass on April 4th! With a rich community of entire worlds built by players, to just sitting back and building something solo with the serene sounds of the game, it’s a great time for fans to get into the game if they haven’t already. The best part? As part of the Xbox Game Pass, it’s free for members of this subscription.
How the Xbox Game Pass works is that it allows players to enjoy unlimited access to over one hundred great Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles for only $9.99 per month, including fan-favorites like including exclusives like Halo, Gears of War, and Fable. With so many games to discover and download, your Xbox experience will never be the same:
Play games across multiple genres, from action/adventure and family favorites to shooters, sports, puzzle games, and more. And with new titles added every month, you’ll always have a wide selection of great games to choose from.
Download games directly to your console and play online or offline in full-fidelity, without any streaming or connectivity issues. Whether it’s a new story to immerse yourself in or an old journey you’re eager to revisit, experience your games as they were intended.
Love an Xbox One game and want to own it? Interested in an add-on or Season Pass for a title you’re playing in the Xbox Game Pass catalog? Save 20% on Xbox One game purchases and 10% on all related add-ons, but only while the base game is currently in the catalog. Xbox 360 games do not qualify for discounts.
Thoughts on the above kimono or Minecraft in general? Sound off in the comment section below, or hit me up over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy.
Members of Xbox’s game subscription service can dive into the mega-popular sandbox game next month.
Microsoft debuted its Xbox Game Pass subscription service in 2017, allowing players to pay one monthly price ($9.99) for unlimited access to an ever-increasing number of games (ranging from family-friendly to mature). Xbox Game Pass can easily be described as Netflix, but for games, instead of television shows and movies.
New games are added to Xbox Game Pass on a regular basis, and April will see a huge title added to the catalog. Minecraft, the sandbox building game that became a phenomenon following its official launch in 2011, will be added to Xbox Game Pass on April 4.
Minecraft on Xbox Game Pass will have all of the same features players may be familiar with from playing the game on other platforms (including the standalone release on Xbox One). That is, players will have the freedom to explore a massive in-game world, and collect resources to construct whatever their imagination can think up.
The game will support cross-platform play, allowing players to interact with others across multiple platforms — everything from PC and Switch to mobile devices (with the exception of PlayStation 4). Players will also have access to the in-game store, called the Minecraft Marketplace, where they can spend real money to purchase extra in-game content.
Minecraft is the latest family-friendly game to be added to the Xbox Game Pass catalog. Pulling from the Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One game libraries, kid-friendly games like The Lego Movie Videogame and Disneyland Adventures are available alongside mature games for adults and parents to enjoy when the kids aren’t around (recent M-rated highlights include Just Cause 4 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider).
As part of March 12’s Inside Xbox broadcast, Microsoft announced the next Xbox Game Pass title–and it is a very big one. Microsoft’s open-ended sandbox game, Minecraft, will be added into the Xbox Game Pass library on Xbox One starting on April 4.
The game has 91 million monthly players, making it bigger than Fortnite, and one of Microsoft’s biggest games ever. Launching on Xbox Game Pass means Minecraft will reach even more people, as anyone with an Xbox Game Pass subscription can play at no extra cost. Microsoft also mentioned that Minecraft’s release into the Xbox Game Pass catalog expands the lineup of family-friendly games further.
Microsoft acquired the Minecraft franchise and developer Mojang in 2014 for $2.5 billion. The game is available on Microsoft’s console and mobile platforms, as well as systems from competing companies like PlayStation and Nintendo.
While Microsoft has no plans to make Minecraft 2, the franchise expands in 2019 with a new game called Minecraft Dungeons, which doesn’t have the franchise’s trademark building mechanics. Outside of games, a Minecraft movie is in the works.
Xbox Game Pass is Microsoft’s subscription service for Xbox One. For $10 USD/month, subscribers get access to a growing library of Xbox One games and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 titles. In addition to legacy titles, all of Microsoft’s first-party exclusives are included with Xbox Game Pass, meaning members can get this year’s Gears 5 and Halo Infinite whenever it comes out at no extra cost.
“Minecraft” is coming to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft announced during an Inside Xbox broadcast on Tuesday. It will be available on the subscription-based streaming service starting on Apr. 4.
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that “Minecraft” is landing on the pass. The game is hugely popular. Since its launch on PC in 2009, it’s attracted over 91 million players worldwide. It’s reportedly the second best-selling video game of all time behind “Tetris.” It’s also been ported to practically every platform you can think of — 20 total — spanning consoles, mobile, and more.
Xbox Game Pass players will get access to the full game and its large library of downloadable content via the Minecraft Marketplace. They will also get the same free updates as other versions, including the upcoming Village & Pillage patch set to arrive later this spring.
Xbox Game Pass launched on Xbox One in 2017 and offers a library of over 100 streaming titles for $10/month. Square Enix’s open-world action adventure game “Just Cause 4” arrived there last month (a mere three months after launch), along with “Fallout 4,” “Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes,” and “F1 2018.”
The subscription service is currently available for Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, although rumor is that Microsoft is looking to bring the service to the Nintendo Switch as well. While Xbox head Phil Spencer said the company is still committed to the traditional home console, it also wants to reach a wider audience and sees services like Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud as opportunities to achieve that goal.
How do you convince gamers that they’re getting their money’s worth from a $500+ graphics card? Nvidia’s latest technique is pretty smart — it’s taking real-time ray tracing, an eye-popping if barely adopted feature previously exclusive to its pricey new RTX-series graphics cards, and bringing it to a whole bunch of older Nvidia GTX-series GPUs that can’t ray trace to save their lives.
I’m partly joking. It’s pretty cool that I’ll soon be able to try out some “basic” DirectX Raytracing with my nearly three-year-old Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 GPU! Here are the other graphics cards and chips that should be able to take advantage with a driver update this April:
But seriously: Nvidia’s blog post seems explicitly designed to show that only the most expensive RTX-series GPUs can remotely approach 60fps framerates in modern games with ray tracing enabled.
Just look at the company’s comparisons charts for a few popular games with ray tracing enabled — and note that the “best case scenario” on the right requires DLSS, another feature that’s still exclusive to the pricier RTX series GPUs. GRID VIEW
The GTX 1080 Ti is among the most powerful of the last-gen cards — and it’s struggling even with a Core i9 processor to help it shoulder the load.
Nvidia chalks up the differences not to exclusive features, mind you, but the actual design of these chips. The RTX-series GPUs simply have cores that the GTX ones don’t, including RT cores designed for ray tracing and Tensor cores for machine learning that help enable DLSS.
But I don’t think that’ll keep Nvidia rival AMD from making fun of this move, though. AMD said last November that it wouldn’t implement DirectX Raytracing (the version that Nvidia is now enabling here) until it could make ray tracing a standard feature across its product line. Those words felt defensive then, but they make a lot more sense now.
Honestly, we’re pretty bullish on ray tracing long-term… but with some of the first promised games just barely getting support months after the graphics cards debuted, it’s very early days for the technology.
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