by Stone Marshall | Oct 20, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
It has been a while since we’ve last heard about Microsoft and Nintendo’s relationship with Minecraft cross-play between platforms. That has changed, as Xbox boss Phil Spencer has commented about the matter. He wasn’t as positive about Sony, but he had nice things to say about Nintendo. Spencer says their relationship with Nintendo on Minecraft has been “strong” and they have been “great supporters”. Here’s what Phil Spencer had to say:
“We talk to Sony all the time. With Minecraft on PlayStation, we have to be one of the biggest games on their platform in terms of sales and gameplay. Same with Nintendo. The relationship with Nintendo on this front has been strong. They’ve been great supporters and we continue to collaborate with them. But I think Sony’s view is different. They should talk about what their view is…”
Microsoft Says Their Relationship With Nintendo On Minecraft Has Been “Strong”
by Stone Marshall | Oct 20, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
As the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer played a key role in bringing the critically acclaimed platformer Cuphead to Xbox One and PC as an exclusive for Microsoft. One of the perks of his position is getting to play games ahead of release. He told us at the Brazil Game Show today that while he beat all the bosses ahead of launch, he hasn’t completed the retail version of the game–and he has a good reason.
“I think I finished all of the bosses at one point before it launched. But no. I’ve been traveling for four weeks in a row so I haven’t had much chance to play,” Spencer said. “It is [an excuse].”
Spencer also told us that Cuphead is selling “very well,” though he didn’t get into specifics about sales numbers. “I am so happy for the studio; they worked a long time on the game. And to have the success they’re having–it’s selling very well,” he said. “The reaction has been great. It’s just fantastic when those kind of things come together.”
As part of Microsoft’s exclusivity deal for Cuphead, the game is staying exclusive to Xbox One and PC forever. It is never coming to PlayStation 4. Spencer said the version of Cuphead that exists today might never have happened were it not for Microsoft’s investment.
“The team had certain ambition about what they wanted to go do. And together with them we wanted to invest more,” he said. “We saw more opportunity. And what that turned into was us having an exclusive game on our platform. That’s a game that probably wouldn’t have happened the way it did if we didn’t invest the way we did.”
Developer StudioMDHR has announced that Cuphead has gone platinum, having sold more than 1 million copies since launch. It did not provide any kind of breakdown between Xbox One and PC, which are the only two platforms Cuphead is available on currently.
Xbox’s Phil Spencer Hasn’t Beaten Cuphead, Has A Good Excuse Though
by Stone Marshall | Oct 19, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Back at E3 2017, Microsoft made headlines when they announced that Minecraft’s Better Together update would enable cross-play multiplayer between Xbox One, Windows 10, Nintendo Switch as well as mobile platforms. But unfortunately for PlayStation gamers, Sony declined to play ball, defending their refusal to open up cross-network play by the necessity to protect younger gamers.
In the following months, Microsoft said that it has been in discussions with Sony to enable cross-play on the Playstation 4 version of Minecraft, but things aren’t looking good so far. In a recent interview with GameSpot, Xbox Chief Phil Spencer shared that he’s unsure if Sony will ever have a change of mind about it. He explained:
“I have a real struggle making comments about their motivation or timelines. I know there is a certain view that says if my friends have this console, they can’t play with people who buy another console. That’s a reason they go buy my console,” he said. “That reason is not going to go away. So we’re putting Minecraft out there as one of the biggest games on any platform and allowing people to play together regardless of what device they bought. I don’t think everybody is taking that same approach to the ecosystem. So I’m never going to call anything a lost cause but I think some of the fundamental reasons and certain scenarios, they’re not really going away. So I don’t know what would change.”
For Spencer, crossplay multiplayer is positive for gamers, game developers as well as the video games industry as a whole. “If it’s better for gamers, I have a hard time thinking why we shouldn’t go do this, especially when you’re trying to make the gaming business a bigger business; grow it, get more games, create more opportunity,” he explained. But Sony, which has the best-selling console of this generation may have no interest to play nice with other platforms, for now at least.
In the meantime, if cross-platform multiplayer does matter to you, then the Xbox One remains the better choice. In addition to Minecraft, several Microsoft Studios titles such as Gears of War 4 or Forza Horizon 3 already support cross-play between Xbox One and Windows 10, and the fighting game Killer Instinct even supports it between Steam, Windows 10 and Xbox One. Do you think Sony will have to change its stance at some point, or do you think the company is more interested in keeping PS4 players in a walled garden? Let us know below.
Sony’s reluctance to bring Minecraft cross-play to Playstation “not going away,” says Xbox chief
by Stone Marshall | Oct 19, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
This week, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer complained openly that Sony will not allow Minecraft cross-platform play to include the PlayStation 4. Nintendo, another competitor, has no problem with this capability, however.
“We talk to Sony all the time,” Mr. Spencer told Gamespot. “With Minecraft on PlayStation, we have to be one of the biggest games on their platform in terms of sales and gameplay. Same with Nintendo. The relationship with Nintendo on this front has been strong. They’ve been great supporters and we continue to collaborate with them. But I think Sony’s view is different. They should talk about what their view is…”
Indeed.
As you may recall, Microsoft this past summer announced that it would consolidate the many different versions of its hit game Minecraft across (almost) all of the platforms it supports. It was arguably the singular blockbuster announcements of this year’s E3 conference. Since then, Microsoft has updated Minecraft with the Better Together update, enabling that cross-platform play.
Except on PlayStation 4.
We’ve known since E3 that Microsoft’s inability to bring cross-platform Minecraft play to PS4 was Sony’s fault. But Spencer and other Microsoft executives had, to date, expressed hope that the firm would do the right thing.
Today, it appears that hope has died.
“I have a real struggle making comments about their motivation or timelines,” he says. “I know there is a certain view that says if my friends have this console, they can’t play with people who buy another console. That’s a reason they go buy my console. That reason is not going to go away. So we’re putting Minecraft out there as one of the biggest games on any platform and allowing people to play together regardless of what device they bought. I don’t think everybody is taking that same approach to the ecosystem. So I’m never going to call anything a lost cause but I think some of the fundamental reasons and certain scenarios, they’re not really going away. So I don’t know what would change.”
Sony, come on. Seriously.
Phil Spencer: Sony is Blocking Minecraft Cross Platform Play
by Stone Marshall | Oct 18, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
Minecraft has a strong tradition of celebrating Halloween and this year is no different. According to a Microsoft, Minecraft’s Halloween Server Spooktacular is coming to “haunt your pixelated dreams” starting until October 31.
For the next 20 days, Minecraft players on the Bedrock Engine can trick-or-treat across servers hosted by various companies.
Each server is filled to the brim with activities but here are some of the main ones you’ll find:
- Lifeboat Servers: Hostile zombie invasions will take over the Lifeboat lobby throughout the course of Spooktacular. There, players can enter a thrilling haunted house parkour course.
- InPVP Servers: InPVP has players hopping from gravestone to gravestone with the Haunted Mansion SkyWars map or exploring creepy houses to find surprises.
- Mineplex Servers: In Mineplex, players come face-to-face with The Pumpkin King for random quests and boxes filled with goodies. There are also random events which grant you even better rewards.
Now, you might be wondering if you have to pay to access the event? The answer is no. It’s free. Personal Minecraft Realms are the servers you have to pay for. The Halloween Server Spooktacular is open to everyone on the Bedrock versions of the game, which excludes PlayStation 4 and the PC’s Java Edition. Just log into a modern version of Minecraft and join the servers for lots of thrills!
Minecraft’s ongoing Halloween event features boss battles and haunted houses
by Stone Marshall | Oct 18, 2017 | Awesome Book News, Free, Intro, Minecraft News, Minecraft questions, news, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News, Stone Marshall Books, Stone Marshall Club, Stone Marshall Minecraft Adventures, Uncategorized |
With this year’s Game Developer’s Conference barely started, Microsoft has already rolled out a major announcement that has the potential to significantly change the console gaming landscape. By allowing for cross-network play on Xbox Live, Microsoft has signaled it’s willing to open the doors to one of gaming’s most frustrating walled gardens and help restore the platform-agnostic promise of the early Internet.
The question is, why now? Microsoft has been running Xbox Live since 2002, and it’s been nearly a decade since the similar PlayStation Network launched on Sony’s PlayStation 3 (not to mention PC-based networks like Steam). Why hasn’t Microsoft made public overtures to connect these disparate networks before now?
Part of it might be technical, on all sides. After all, it’s easier to develop a new, private gaming network with tens of millions of users if you are in total control of all the hardware that will be connecting together. The Xbox 360 and PS3’s vastly different system architectures may have made true online agnosticism difficult on console developers in the last generation as well.
But a large part of it was surely business-related, at least for Microsoft. The lock-in effects of closed gaming networks means console gamers have long had to effectively coordinate their system purchases to line up with those of their online gaming friends.
Ten years ago, when the Xbox 360 was launching, this was a key advantage for Microsoft’s new system. Back then, Microsoft had years of experience running Xbox Live (compared to Sony’s standing start with the PlayStation Network), a one-year head start in reaching market with the Xbox 360, and online-centric exclusives like Halo and Gears of War in the pipe to drive multiplayer-focused gamers to its console ecosystem.
The momentum driven by that Xbox Live lock-in among console gaming’s online early adopters was no doubt a large part of why the Xbox 360 was able to find relative market success—especially in the West—following Sony’s market-dominating PlayStation 2 (though it surely wasn’t the only reason).
That means, all things being equal, this console generation is much more likely to see a critical mass of your friends playing on Sony’s PlayStation Network rather than on Microsoft’s Xbox Live. If both online ecosystems are closed off from each other, more new console buyers are going to follow those friends to Sony’s console if they want to play online. But in the world of cross-platform play Microsoft is proposing, the Xbox One might suddenly get a second look—especially since the system will give you access to a new Halo in addition to letting you play Call of Duty and Madden with all your PS4-owning friends.
And it’s a flag that Sony doesn’t have to accept. By offering “an open invitation for other networks [read: Sony] to participate as well,” though, Microsoft is very publicly pressuring Sony to follow the same course. Otherwise, Sony will likely take a significant PR hit for trying to hold on to its own relative walled-garden advantage at the expense of player convenience. (Developers will also have to play along, but the notion of having a single, unified base of players across two major consoles will probably win out over any technical growing pains in connecting the two similar consoles).
Sony hasn’t given much indication how it will respond to Microsoft’s very open invitation/dare, but it would be in everyone’s best interests if they could bury the hatchet. Business concerns aside, there’s no longer much reason to force developers and players to a limited base of competitors with the exact same hardware if they don’t want to. Hopefully, Sony won’t let its current market dominance prevent a chance to finally unify a hopelessly divided online gaming landscape.
Why Microsoft is finally pushing for cross-platform online gaming
