Minecraft-style Lenin monument unveiled in Siberian city (VIDEO)

Looking for the best Black Friday gaming deal? Want an Xbox One S 500GB with 3x amazing games? What if I told you that there’s an Xbox One S bundle with Fallout 4, DOOM, and Minecraft for £169.99. Would you buy it? Oh my – yes you would. Well, Currys is selling exactly that right now, and it’ll be a deal that gets snapped up VERY fast, so get on it. It’s one of the best Black Friday deals right now. Alternately, you can get the Xbox One S + Assassin’s Creed Origins and Forza 7 for £169 from eBay (and it’s brand new).

There are heaps of other Xbox One S deals this Black Friday, and a bunch of Xbox One X bundles too. None, however, offer such amazing value as this one. Don’t forget that the Xbox One S does support HDR, so it’ll still look great on your new 4K TV, if you have one. Sure, you’ve maybe already played Minecraft, but the addition of DOOM and Fallout 4 offer 100s of hours of genuinely great Bethesda action for an absolute steal.

Want something a bit different? You can get an Xbox One S with Assassin’s Creed Origins and Forza 7 for £169.99 too!

Don’t miss this Xbox One S + DOOM, Fallout 4 and Minecraft for… £169.99

Computer games and healthy eating might not seem like a natural combination, but the two go hand in hand for Year 5 students at Methven Primary School in Canterbury.

Using Minecraft’s education edition, the pupils are building a virtual village, complete with a free range chicken farm, crop fields and shops to sell the produce.

Teacher Adele Warburton says Minecraft is more than just a fun computer game. She says using Minecraft as a learning tool encourages 21st century skills such as collaboration, communication, creativity and problem solving. It also teaches the children about being good digital citizens.

“We talk about how you wouldn’t rip someone’s book up, therefore you wouldn’t tear down their house in Minecraft.”

Warburton admits that her students are all better than her at Minecraft.

“They’re digital natives after all. Accepting differences is one of our school values and the kids have to accept that I’m useless.”

Director of Minecraft Education Neal Manegold said his goal is to make Minecraft: Education Edition accessible to all teachers, not just the techie types.

“We’ve baked a tutorial world into the game that is designed not only for teachers who have never played Minecraft, but teachers who have never played a computer game.”

Microsoft introduced Minecraft: Education Edition just over a year ago and the tech giant has been working hard ever since to keep up with teachers’ growing demand for the game as they begin to recognise its value as a teaching tool.

At the Bett Asia 2017 education technology summit held last week in Kuala Lumpur, teachers from all over the world got hands-on with the game in Minecraft Teacher Academy sessions.

Manegold says Minecraft can be used in and across all subjects.

“It’s not a case of teachers saying ‘ok, now it’s Minecraft time’; it’s about seamless curriculum integration.”

He points to a growing bank of Minecraft lesson plans shared by teachers, for teachers.

Most of the plans are multidisciplinary. One lesson plan tasks students with building a sustainable community on an island with limited resources, touching on literacy, geography and environmental sciences.

Manegold also says there needs to be clear evidence of students’ learning.
“It’s not enough for teachers to say, ‘I’m cool, I’m using Minecraft’. Students need to be able to show the benefits of what they’re doing and what they’ve learned.”

There are tools within the game – such as virtual blackboards and non-moveable players – to allow teachers to plant resources and information. Students have access to a camera tool to take pictures of their work, and a digital book for recording and sharing their learning. They can also use Code Builder to replicate code they’ve created and use it in other applications, and pull their 3D models out of Minecraft and into other projects.

Minecraft helps kids understand the basics of coding and computer programming.

Partnering with the global Hour of Code initiative, Microsoft launched last week a new Minecraft tutorial for this year’s event in December.

However, Don Carlson, director of education for Microsoft Asia Pacific, says there’s more to Minecraft than learning to code.

“Coding empowers young people, giving them the tools they need to not only express themselves, but also transform the way they think critically and solve complex problems.”

Dr Richard Campbell of Coding Heroes in South Korea agrees.

“We shouldn’t be teaching coding for coding’s sake. It’s the creativity, critical thinking and other 21st century skills that kids utilise that are important to take away from the coding experience.”

Minecraft: Education Edition

•Launched in 2016

•2 million licensed users

• Used in 115 countries

• 70 million Minecraft Hour of Code tutorial sessions

• 260 Minecraft lessons created by educators

School in Methven using Minecraft as education tool

Minecraft giveth; Minecraft taketh away.

Mojang has officially published all the big announcements from this year’s Minecon Earth live show—a much more convenient replacement for the traditional convention the company throws for its world-building game. Before we chat about the new aquatic content comign to Minecraft, we’ll get the bad news out of the way first: The game’s Super Duper Graphics pack isn’t going to arrive this year.

Instead, says Mojang, the optional downloadable content—”crammed full of excessive visual razzmatazz” for console and mobile players, including 4K HDR graphics—is going to arrive next year. Mojang didn’t offer a specific release date, but says that it’ll be updating Minecraft.net with new information as it becomes available.

Similarly, a new version of Minecraft for the Nintendo Switch that allows for cross-platform multiplayer is also being delayed until 2018.

“Nintendo has been a great partner and we’re really excited to fully bring Switch players into the fold, however, we need to make sure we deliver the best experience possible. So the new version of Minecraft will now be coming to Nintendo Switch next year. Xbox One, PC, mobile and Nintendo Switch, all playing multiplayer Minecraft together in 2018 – I’m getting emotional just thinking about it,” write Mojang’s Tom Stone.

The big content announcement from Minecon Earth is Mojang’s ‘The Update Aquatic,’ which will add lots of new watery features to Minecraft, including new fish, dolphins, coral, water physics, and explorable shipwrecks. Players will also be able to wield tridents as they adventure around—weapons you jab enemies with or throw at them. And, yes, you can enchant your trident to ensure it always returns to your hand once you’ve tossed it, the world’s most awkward boomerang.

In Mojang’s update, players will be able to catch different kinds of fish depending on the temperature of the water they’re in, and they’ll be able to create and populate aquariums for their collections. Minecraft builders will also get a chance to drop new bubble columns into their creations, and all players can go on hunts for treasure around their worlds—dolphins can help point the way to the loot, found in various structures like shipwrecks and icebergs.

Mojang didn’t indicate when The Update Aquatic would land, only that it would arrive in a future Minecraft update.

New Minecraft Update Goes Under the Sea

A large part of Minecraft‘s allure is showing off your work. And now, it should be relatively easy to do that in real time. Mojang has released an update that lets you livestream directly to Microsoft Mixer (its parent company’s service, naturally) from within the game on Android devices, Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One consoles. If you’ve just finished recreating an entire country, you can take people on a live tour without starting a broadcast in a separate app or service first. And your audience doesn’t have to simply watch, either.

‘Minecraft’ now livestreams building sessions directly to Mixer

You can’t say retailers haven’t been offering some great (slightly early) Black Friday gaming deals. From Xbox One S bundles to PS4 Pro packages, there’s been deals a plenty and we’re not even at the big day yet. But for the Nintendo Switch, GAME and Amazon are offering the Switch with a game for under £300. Take a look:

So we’re already hitting sub-£300 deals for the Switch and there’s still two days until actual Black Friday. No doubt there are plenty of consumers out there waiting for such a deal for a Switch with either Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or Super Mario Odyssey for such a price. Of course, we’ll tell you if that happens, so keep an eye on our best Black Friday Nintendo deals hub for the latest.

You can now get a Nintendo Switch with a game for under £300 thanks to Black Friday

Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality platform is still new, but we’re starting to see exciting and immersive content arrive for it, including SteamVR titles, and now, Microsoft’s own blocky adventure game.

That’s right. Minecraft has officially arrived for Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) headsets. Technically, you could already play Minecraft in WMR, but you could only play on a virtual big screen. The game has been updated on Windows 10, however, allowing you to strap on your headset and step into a virtual reality world. This update has been in beta testing for over a month, so we knew it was coming.

• There’s a new version of Minecraft that’s just for learning
• 27 incredible Minecraft creations that will blow your mind

Here’s what Microsoft said in its announcement post: “Now, Windows Mixed Reality brings you even more options to 3D-ify your crafty fun, and requires next to no set-up. Just plug the headset into the USB slot and you’re good to go.” Speaking of headsets, check out Pocket-lint’s guide here to see what is available. There are many models to choose from, including ones from Samsung, Dell, and HP.

Alongside this news, Microsoft’s Minecraft team revealed that Mixer integration has been added to the game, giving you the option to start a stream from within Minecraft. Mind you, all this has arrived before a huge update coming to Minecraft. Microsoft has been hard at work on a new engine for the game so that it can run across Windows 10, iOS, Android, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch using the same codebase.

But the most exciting part about the upcoming update, dubbed Update Aquatic, is that it will add tonnes of new features to the game’s oceanic areas, including coral reefs, shipwrecks, new aquatic species, and more. Find out what else is coming via the video above.

Minecraft comes to Windows Mixed Reality ahead of major update

The next two weeks will decide the fate of the Justice League movie. It’ll open in Japan and Pakistan later this week and debuts in Lebanon on the 30th. The film should be over/under $325 million worldwide as of yesterday, with a solid $10.55m Tuesday in North America for a new $111.9m five-day cume. At least it has already passed Green Lantern and Catwoman.

It’ll be the next two weeks, specifically the Thanksgiving holiday in North America and the general worldwide legs overseas that will determine whether the film will be a disappointment or an outright money loser. The good news is that it has earned double the domestic take overseas, meaning that it may well earn triple its domestic gross worldwide. And yes, that’s good news, because we could have easily seen a situation where the film opened small and had an overseas split closer to Wonder Woman (50/50) than Batman v Superman (33/67).

I’ll go into this next week once we get more info, but Justice League may be yet another example of why/how domestic box office is still so damn important even to global-targeted would-be blockbusters. So what kind of grand total are we looking at here? Well, let’s play around with the calculator for a moment…

Come what may, if the film plays like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 2 in terms of legs and domestic/overseas splits, then we’re looking at a $195 million domestic (that’s bad) and a $585m worldwide cume (also very bad, or less than Transformers: The Last Knight or even It). Conversely, if it plays like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I (a 2.35x multiplier), then we’re looking at a $220m domestic total, which is still lower than Logan or Fate of the Furious. Of course, Fate of the Furious made $1 billion overseas, but that’s not happening here.

Removing Wonder Woman from the equation, a 2.22x multiplier — average for the DCEU — gets the film to $210 million, while a multiplier closer to Suicide Squad (2.44x) gets it to $230m and a run closer to the Hunger Games sequels and the first Twilight gets it to around $255m. The hope-against-hope scenario is where Justice League earns decent word of mouth and plays like a well-liked general audiences family fantasy, like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (3.1x) or even Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2.9x) or Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2.85x).

Legs like that, which will take JL anywhere from $267 million to $292m domestic. That still won’t qualify as a success, but it will argue that general audiences liked what they saw and that positioning Justice League as a season premiere (as opposed to a season finale) may pay off down the line. Apples and oranges perhaps, but Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins was not the biggest hit in the world back in 2005, earning $205m (from a $72m Wed-Sun debut) and $371m worldwide. But folks liked it, the critics liked it, and the payoff was the game-changing $1 billion+ gross of The Dark Knight.

But put that comparison aside for a moment. The other big factor is how well it plays overseas over the next two-to-three weeks. If we’re looking at a 2/1 split, then a Deathly Hallows part I run gets it to $665 million worldwide while a run like the Hunger Games sequels, the first Twilight and the earlier Harry Potter movies means a $750m-$775m global cume. The alleged word is that $700m is the break-even point, so while the movie won’t be incredibly popular, it might sneak into the black by the edge of its teeth, especially if we do get some kind of “alternate cut” on post-theatrical release.

Obviously, there are rosier scenarios, like Justice League indeed playing like Fantastic Beasts in more ways than one. That film earned a mediocre $234 million domestic but powered it overseas for an $814m global cume. And as awful as that $94m debut was, I will argue that a leggier Justice League that gets to $800m+ worldwide is a pretty okay result. If we look at Justice League not as a culmination movie but as a soft reboot/introductory title, the question becomes whether audiences like what they had to see, specifically in terms of the characters.

If they like Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman (that franchise is already gold regardless), Jason Momoa’s Aquaman (I believe in James Wan) and/or Ezra Miller’s Flash, that’s a good sign for the long haul considering the next batch of likely DC movies. And yeah, while we may not need and may not get a Man of Steel 2, there is a case to be made for tossing Henry Cavill’s “good-hearted schmuck” Superman into a later DC Films offering as an added value element, just as Marvel has done with their third shot at making Bruce Banner cool. Ditto with Ray Fisher’s Cyborg (Fisher is fine in an understated turn and more Joe Morton is always a net-plus).

In a skewed way, Justice League has found itself in a position similar to Power Rangers and Ghostbusters. Power Rangers was far better than it had any right to be, operating as a kind of sleek, low-fi, character-driven origin story that felt like a cross between Chronicle and the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. But it earned just $140 million global on a $100m budget. Ditto Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters, which offered Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon as crowd-pleasing new Ghostbusters but earned $128m domestic but just $228m worldwide on a $144m budget. Thus, both would-be franchise starters got stalled on the first try.

In both cases, the first films nailed the main characters just right but didn’t quite create a compelling story around them. And in both cases the films A) lost money, B) earned mixed or mixed-negative reviews and C) didn’t display the kind of legs that would argue for a continuation or any potential for “break out sequel” status the next go-around. But just because Justice League is probably dead doesn’t mean that DC Comics movies are toast. Wonder Woman is now WB’s most important franchise, while I would be shocked if James Wan’s Aquaman isn’t at least a crowd-pleasing, meat-and-potatoes entertainment. You don’t need a cinematic universe to have DC Comics movies.

I’ve said over the last few years that Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. is more than just Batman and Harry Potter. There is zero reason why WB can’t thrive on a stand-alone Wonder Woman series and periodic DC Comics adaptations like Flashpoint, Aquaman or Matt Reeves’ Batman movie, which will be slated alongside the LEGO films, the JK Rowling stuff, the Conjuring Universe stuff and the New Line Cinema studio programmers among other bigger and smaller movies. Heck, if Tomb Raider, Rampage, Ready Player One or The Meg hit it big next year, WB may finally be confident enough to end the DC Films cinematic universe in favor of merely making movies that are based on DC comic books.

Box Office: As ‘Justice League’ Crosses $320M, Should DC Films Be Saved?

If you want to sample almost every of the main genres of gaming, hoo boy are you in for a treat. Now that we’re being drowned in Black Friday gaming deals, Currys is currently offering a bundle that not only provides you with the ramped up Xbox One S but also throws in a RPG with enough story for the most discerning of authors, the most shooty of FPSs, a sandbox game brimming with potential, a racing game, and a FPS RPG with killer online multiplayer. The only catch is you’ll have to order online and then go pick it up in store. But for a deal this great, we’re sure you can make an exception.

If Minecraft isn’t your cup of tea (Creepers aren’t for everyone, we guess), you can also buy the an identical bundle that just replaces Minecraft with Forza Horizon 3 and the Hot Wheels pack for £210 from Currys. Then you can race to your heart’s content and relive that magical childhood nostalgia that comes from making tiny plastic cars zoom along metres of bright orange plastic. If neither of these are quite what you’re looking for, head over to our best Black Friday Xbox One deals to see what else is on offer.

Get an Xbox One S, Minecraft, Star Wars Battlefront II, DOOM, Fallout 4, AND Forza 7 for £210 on Black Friday *dies*

UPDATE, midday Friday: Disney/Pixar’s Coco is looking at an opening day of $12.5 million (including last night’s $2.3M) as of this point per industry estimates, which is $2.6M less than what Moana chalked up a year ago. Right now, because it’s so early, both Coco and Warner Bros’ Justice League are in a battle for No. 1 overall at the domestic box office with an estimated $47M three-day and $68M five-day each. As we move along this week, it should settle down and separate the two.

Coco will beat Justice League today with the latter Zack Snyder movie making an estimated $10.5M, down 1% versus yesterday. If its projections hold, the DC superhero team-up will touch just under $180M. While we’ve been complaining about the film’s lackluster performance in regards to the DC franchise, exhibitors could care less about that: They’re rolling in concession cash, and the marketplace in the past three weeks has been a boom versus last summer’s doldrums.

Lionsgate’s Wonder is looking at $6M today, up 7% from Tuesday, with a current three-day outlook of $26.5M and five-day of $37.5M, heading toward $74.6M. The Stephen Chbosky-directed film will easily be Lionsgate’s best of 2017, topping John Wick: Chapter Two‘s $92M. On a three-day basis, Wonder is expected to ease 4% right now. Wow.

Disney/Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok is looking at a $4M Wednesday, a three-day of $17.8M and five-day of $25M — still money out of Justice League‘s pocket. Running cume by Sunday looks to be $278.2M.

Other holders are as follows:

Murder on the Orient Express (Fox) $2.6M Wed, 3-day $13.5M and 5-day $19M, running cume by Sunday of $74.6M.

Daddy’s Home 2 (Par) $2.5M Wed, 3-day $13.5M and 5-day of $18M, running come by Sunday of $72M.

Expanding titles: 

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri  (FSL), 590 runs. $800,000 Wed, 3-day of $4.5M, 5-day of $6.2M. Total by Sunday of $7.96M.

Roman J. Israel, Esq (Sony), 1,648 runs. Looks like $800K today (including $175K from Tuesday night) for 3-day of $4.1M and 5-day of $5.7M. Total by Sunday of $5.8M.

Lady Bird (A24), 741 runs. $600K Wed, 3-day $3.4M and 5-day of $4.6M, Total by Sunday of $9.9M.

PREVIOUSLY, 8:26 AM: Disney/Pixar’s Coco began its Thanksgiving march on the box office last night with $2.3 million, with an eye on making $60M or more over the next five days.

Coco opens at a sensitive time for Disney. Just yesterday, Pixar boss John Lasseter said he was taking a six-month sabbatical amid allegations of inappropriate behavior. Still, that Hollywood insider scandal isn’t expected to rock Coco‘s prospects in the rest of the U.S. and Canada.

Coco‘s preview is just $300,ooo shy of Moana‘s $2.6M Tuesday preview a year ago. That pic racked up $15.5M on its first day. Coco is also far ahead of The Good Dinosaur, considered a bomb for Pixar with $1.3M previews ($9.76M Wednesday). Coco is also ahead of Disney’s uber hit Frozen, which made $1.2M on its first Tuesday ($15.1M Wednesday) during Thanksgiving week.

Coco in its Dia de los muertos story doesn’t have the Disney princess factor Moana possessed, which pushed down on Coco‘s projections prior to opening. But the film has a 95% certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes score, which could push its tickets sales higher; it’s just one point below Moana‘s RT rating. Moana grossed $56.6M in its first three days and $82M over five, making it the second-best Thanksgiving stretch debut after Frozen‘s $93.6M. Coco carries a reported production cost in the Pixar range which is typically between $175M-$200M before P&A, however, those in the animation world believe it’s much higher north of $225M.

The night before Thanksgiving is a notable one at the B.O. and Black Friday is even bigger. Today there are 74% kids off from K-12 and another 59% of colleges. That number moves up to 100% over the next two days.

Warner Bros/DC’s Justice League led all films in regular release with a big Tuesday of $10.6M, up 41% over Monday, for a running cume of $111.9M. The Zack Snyder-directed movie is expected to take in a gross similar to Coco‘s with $60M over the next five days. While critics have strangled Justice League with a 41% Rotten Tomatoes score, audiences are enjoying it with final PostTrak showing a 4-out-of-5-star response with males at 62% enjoying the movie with an 80% overall positive, and females at 38% giving it an 85% grade. Warners is hoping that more of those older female Wonder Woman fans come out, just like they did for her June solo outing: Females over 25 are giving Justice League its best grades at 90%, but they’re still in the minority among the pic’s headcount repping only 18% of the audience. Leading the charge are males under 35 (32%, 78% positive), males over 25 (30%, 81% positive), and women under 25 (20% at 81% positive). Justice League overall has a 65% definite recommend.

Lionsgate’s Wonder chalked up an estimated $5.6M yesterday, up 43% over Monday, for a five-day total of $37.1M. Many expect the Julia Roberts-Owen Wilson movie to be north of $64M by Sunday in its running domestic total.

Sony’s Roman J. Israel, Esq. expands from four to 1,648 today. Bleecker Street has the period piece The Man Who Invented Christmas in 500 houses, while Focus Features will open its Gary Oldman-as-Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour in four New York and Los Angeles theaters. Ditto on that count for Sony Pictures Classics’ Spirit Award-nom leading pic Call Me By Your Name.

‘Coco’ Mints $12M+ Wednesday & Fights ‘Justice League’ For No. 1 At Thanksgiving Box Office With $68M