Minecraft hits Android Market this week
With its Xperia Play exclusivity deal expired, Minecraft will be available for all Android devices when developer Mojang releases it on the Android Market this Thursday. More >
With its Xperia Play exclusivity deal expired, Minecraft will be available for all Android devices when developer Mojang releases it on the Android Market this Thursday. More >
Minecraft in your pocket at last, but how much of the game survived the transition?
Projector Games' Xbox Live Indie Game, heavily inspired by Mojang's Minecraft, had grossed a million dollars from 350,000 copies sold by the beginning of last month. The intervening weeks have taken that total past the 500,000 mark, with the developer taking to Twitter to say: "After only 163 days of being available, I'm incredibly proud for Fortresscraft [to] finally sell that magic half-million; thank you everyone."
In what seems an entirely appropriate move for a game marketed by sex toys and porn stars, Dead Or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki will be a playable character in the upcoming Saints Row: The Third. Itagaki, whose in-game avatar will sport his trademark sunglasses and leather jacket, is currently developing the action-adventure Devil's Third for Saints Row publisher THQ.
Nothing here that wasn't shown in the E3 trailer earlier this year, but another opportunity to dip into Animal Crossing's new 3D world. Trailer below.
Says Mojang is in talks with Valve but recognises an "inherent incompatibility between what we and they want to do."
We chronicle the rise of the 3D metropolis at the heart of the GTA universe.
We thought we'd shaken the habit, but then Notch's world-building game Minecraft found its way on to Sony's Xperia Play handset. A very late night and several cups of strong coffee resulted in the brick-for-brick recreation of Edge’s HQ you can see in the video below.
Mojang's indie hit is to be released for all Android devices in due course, but its exclusivity deal with Sony Ericsson means that it has been released first for the Xperia Play. And, in typical fashion, this first release is an alpha, with Mojang promising to improve the current version's rather limited feature set over time. Focusing on the "creative aspects of Minecraft", version 0.1 features randomised worlds, 36 types of block, and local multiplayer. "We have tried to put in the features that make sense for playing on a mobile device while still keeping the core of the Minecraft experience," the developer told Kotaku. "You will be able to select blocks on the touchscreen or just scroll through them with the circle and square buttons on the Xperia Play."
The Minecraft homage, the work of Projector Games, has grossed a million dollars in six months, the developer has announced. With 350,000 copies sold, it's believed to be the most successful game on the Xbox Live Indie Games service, though sales are sure to slow down when Minecraft gets an official XBLA release, with Kinect support, later this year.
3Mojang's seemingly unstoppable sandbox game passed 2.5 million sales in June, and less than two months later it has reached the three million mark. Studio head Markus "Notch" Persson said in April that the game had grossed £20 million from 1.8 million sales; with Minecraft currently costing €14.95, that total is now somewhere around £35 million. We can't imagine Notch has an awful lot to worry about these days, but at this rate there may be no-one left to buy Minecraft by the time it's officially released in November.
Markus "Notch" Persson has confirmed to our friends at PC Gamer that a Minecraft convention, creatively dubbed Minecon, will take place at the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas on November 18 and 19. The convention coincides with the release of the final version of Minecraft, and Notch said: "I’m really looking forward to getting up on stage and pushing the button to upload the final build. We’ll just go back home and keep working on Minecraft directly after Minecon, but it does represent a huge milestone where the game finally leaves beta, something we’d never been able to do without our fans, so it feels natural to celebrate it with them.”
A sandbox so good, you might just forget your next objective.
17Microsoft will release its "social entertainment experience" Avatar Kinect on July 27, according to WinRumors sources. The platform holder has said the program will use the Kinect sensor's "precise facial-recognition capabilities to project your face and expressions into a virtual world", allowing up to eight players to communicate in various themed environments from the comfort of their sofa. Avatar Kinect will reportedly be released as part of Kinect Fun Labs, a service launched during E3 which lets consumers download and play around with industry and community developed Kinect innovations.
According to data released by the Japan Online Game Association (Joga), translated by Andriasang, Japanese spending on online games rose 3 per cent year on year in 2010, rising to ¥132.9 billion - £1.05 billion at current exchange rates. Of that, ¥29.4 billion (£232.3 million) was spent on boxed software, with ¥103.5 billion (£817.9 million) on "online game operation" - subscription fees, software downloads and virtual goods. Joga tracked spending on social games for the first time, and the sector comfortably outstripped traditional online games, grossing ¥235.5 billion (£1.86 billion).
Creator Markus "Notch" Persson reveals the latest milestone for Mojang's seemingly unstoppable indie game in a brief blog post. Last month he announced that sales of Minecraft had passed 2.5 million, bringing in an estimated £30 million in revenue despite still being in beta. It is now within touching distance of World Of Warcraft: the hugely popular MMOG had 11.4 million users in March.
SCEE's compensation for the PSN downtime to Home users has been some time coming: the free games offered as part of the Welcome Back programme were available almost four weeks ago. The virtual goods on offer to users of PS3's social virtual world are worth a combined £65, and include an anime-themed personal space and furniture set, as well as clothing, games and a party bundle containing smoke machines and balloons. All content is brand new, SCEE says, and is available to download from PlayStation Home until July 28.
Stereoscopic 3D boss says platform holder now has the power to realise the VR dreams of the 1980s.
3The Kinect-compatible port of Mojang's indie smash is being handled by Dundee-based 4J Studios. The developer has plenty of experience, having produced the PS3 version of Oblivion and the XBLA ports of Banjo Kazooie and Perfect Dark. Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson said: "I'm a big fan of their previous work, and they've worked closely with Microsoft in the past."
Creator Markus "Notch" Persson reveals latest milestone two months after sales hit 2 million. He said in April that the game had grossed £20 million from 1.8 million sales; with Minecraft now costing €14.95, that figure is now almost £30 million - not bad for a game still in beta.