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Tag: Minecraft Pocket Edition

  • Minecraft Pocket Edition Has Not Been Forgotten

    With the success of Minecraft on consoles and PCs, it’s hard to remember that the game remains insanely popular on mobile devices as well. In fact, it’s sold more than 10 million copies across both iOS and Android. Despite all this, some may start to feel that the mobile version is taking a backseat to the console and PC version. Those fans will be happy to hear that’s not the case.

    Mojang updated its official blog today to let Minecraft Pocket Edition fans know that development is still going strong on their favorite mobile title. While no reason is given for the lack of large updates, Mojang says that it’s “restructuring a lot of code.” Why?

    We’re working on restructuring a lot of code to allow significantly bigger worlds in future updates. We’re also updating the AI, inventory, and a bunch of other things.

    It certainly sounds like the team at Mojang has a big update on its hands and it won’t be ready for a while. That could certainly explain why Minecraft Pocket Edition has been lagging in updates. One would assume it will all be worth it though once it launches at some point in the future.

    In other news, Mojang will be “pausing access” to Pocket Realms on March 1. From that time until it’s restored, players won’t be able to play Minecraft Pocket Edition online. Mojang says the “pause” is due to the team putting the finishing touches on the PC version of Realms, and will return to Pocket Realms once the PC version is done. Oh, and don’t worry, all your saved progress in Pocket Realms will still be there once it comes back online.

    Image via Mojang

  • Minecraft Pocket Edition Gets Biggest Update Yet

    With all the noise surrounding Minecraft on consoles and PC, it’s hard to forget that the game is still plugging away on mobile as well. For the millions of players who own it on their respective mobile device, big updates are rare. That’s why today’s announcement is especially exciting.

    Mojang announced today that Minecraft Pocket Edition has been updated to version 0.8.0. While we’re still quite a ways away from the fabled version 1.00, it doesn’t mean that Mojang has been slacking off on adding new features. Here’s all the new stuff you can get today with the latest update:

  • Minecarts, rails, and powered rails!
  • The view distance has been massively increased. Check the options menu for more!
  • New textures and colours taken directly from the PC version
  • New blocks: carpets, more wood types, hay bales, iron bars, and more
  • New crops and food types, including beetroot, carrots, potatoes and pumpkins. Now you can cook new soups, pies, and more!
  • A bunch of new items for Creative and Survival, including clocks and compasses
  • More blocks and items to use in Creative Mode: including jungle wood, ice, bedrock, shears, dyes, and tall grass
  • New AI: mobs are now more intelligent and you can even breed your own animals
  • A new Creative Mode inventory with tabs
  • New functionality and tweaks to existing blocks and items. Bonemeal lets you grow new cool stuff!
  • Improved lighting and fog effects
  • Loads of bugs fixed, and possibly some added.

    • You can grab the newly updated Minecraft Pocket Edition from Google Play, iTunes or the Amazon Appstore.

    As for the other versions of Minecraft, the game is still coming to the Xbox One, PS4 and PS Vita at some point in the future. The Xbox 360 version of the game is still receiving regular updates as well, with the latest being a Skyrim skin pack.

    [Image: Mojang]

  • Minecraft Pocket Edition Version 0.6.0 Should Be Out Soon

    It was reported last week that Mojang was working on a smaller update for Minecraft Pocket Edition that would add a few new features, but its main purpose would be to address a few bugs. Plans change, however, and Mojang has decided to merge update 0.5.1 and 0.6.0 into a single update that will be out soon.

    Mojang’s Jens Bergentsen announced this morning that the next update for Minecraft Pocket Edition – version 0.6.0 – has been submitted for review. That means players should see the update hit the iOS and Android version of the title in the next one to two weeks.

    Here’s all the new additions you can expect from version 0.6.0:

    New features:

  • Signs
  • Armor
  • Baby animals
  • Fancy clouds
  • Improved D-pad
  • Stonecutter for crafting stone blocks
  • Sheep can be colored with dyes
  • New block types: Netherrack, Nether Brick, Block of Quartz with 2 variants (pillar and chiseled), mossy/cracked Smooth Stone Brick variants (creative only), chiseled/smooth Sandstone variants
  • New stairs: Nether Brick, Sandstone, Smooth Stone Brick, Quartz
  • New slabs: Sandstone
  • New item: Nether Brick (smelted from netherrack and crafted into nether brick tile)
  • Upside-down stairs, corner stairs
  • Slabs can be placed in up position (needs testing on small screens)
  • Sand and Gravel are affected by gravity

    • Tweaks:

  • Recipes for crafting slabs give 6 slabs instead of 3 (as in PC version)
  • Nether Reactor spawns Netherrack blocks instead of Obsidian
  • The fog and sky color have changed
  • The Nether Reactor now spawns more items
  • Cows drop Leather

    • Bug fixes:

  • Melons had several bugs where they would spawn too fast and where they shouldn’t

    • As you can see, quite a bit of work went into the latest version of Minecraft’s mobile counterpart. There should be plenty of new content here to keep Minecraft Pocket Edition’s 5 million players satisfied until the next update.

    Unfortunately, not everybody will be able to enjoy this latest update. Mojang announced that this latest version of Minecraft Pocket Edition is dropping support for Android 2.1 and 2.2. You’re going to need Android 2.3 or higher now to play the latest version. Older versions of the game will still work on older versions of Android though.

  • Minecraft Now At 20 Million Sales Total, 9 Million Came From PC

    Minecraft is the money machine that just won’t stop. Late last year, all three versions of the game hit some pretty big sales milestones. It hasn’t slowed down since with the PC version of the hit indie title reaching another massive sales milestone.

    Earlier this morning, Mojang’s Jeb posted on Twitter that the PC version of Minecraft has now hit 9 million copies sold. He said that this brings the total across all platforms up to 20 million.

    That’s impressive, but Minecraft Pocket Edition is really starting to pick up steam. The mobile title was sitting at a fairly impressive 5 million copies sold in November of last year, but it’s now already at 7.3 million copies sold. It will probably break 8 million by the end of the month.

    Minecraft wouldn’t be enjoying half of its success if it wasn’t for the tireless teams at Mojang and 4J Studios who bring constant updates to the various versions of the game. It seems like more and more people are buying Minecraft as new features are announced.

    Speaking of new features, Minecraft: Pocket Edition should be getting some new features soon via a version update to 0.5.1. The update will include oft-requested features like gravity, clouds and maybe some Redstone related updates.

    The PC and Xbox 360 versions of the title are continually receiving updates as well. 4J Studios is still hard at work and taking suggestions from the community on Twitter as to what should be added next. It’s this kind of community interaction and transparency that will push Minecraft in all its versions to at least 30 million sales.

  • Minecraft: Pocket Edition 0.5.1 Update Coming Soon

    Despite being the little brother of the bunch, Minecraft: Pocket Edition has become quite the sales juggernaut. The game stays atop the charts on both iOS and Android, and sales have surpassed 5 million. Not bad for a premium app in an age where most mobile gamers refused to pay for anything. Now, Mojang could sit back and relax, but the developer is already working on the next update for Minecraft: Pocket Edition.

    The next update to hit Minecraft: Pocket Edition will bring the game up to version 0.5.1. It’s not the mythical 0.6.0 update that will bring a lot of new features to the game, but the latest update will feature a number of additions that will make any Minecraft fan happy.

    For starters, the update will finally add signs to the mobile version of the game. You can check out a preview of what they look like on Johan’s Twitter feed. Clouds and bluer skies are also being added with clouds being only available on fast devices.

    The biggest addition to version 0.5.1 is gravity. Now certain block types will fall when losing the support of blocks beneath it. I’m sure some players enjoyed the gravity defying blocks of the Pocket Edition, but the addition of gravity is just one more step towards making Pocket Edition just like its console and PC cousins.

    As for the big update coming with version 0.6.0, the team has revealed some of what they’re working on. First, caves will be added for those with faster devices as the feature seems to cripple older devices. The update will also probably add stone brick slabs and stairs alongside Redstone and Redstone powered objects. There’s a chance that these could show up in 0.5.1, but it’s more likely that these features are being saved for the big 0.6.0 update.

    So, when can you expect to see the 0.5.1 update hitting your favorite mobile device? Mojang is planning on having it out by the end of the month. If not, it will be out at the beginning of February. Until then, keep mining your anti-gravity blocks while you have the chance.

    [h/t: Droid Gamers]

  • Minecraft Pocket Edition Sales Surpass 5 Million

    Popular indie title Minecraft is available in three flavors – the original PC version, the Xbox 360 Edition and the Pocket Edition for mobile devices. It’s this last version, Pocket Edition, that gets the least amount of attention. Despite that, it’s already hit an impressive new sales milestone.

    Johan Bernhardsson, one of the developers on Minecraft Pocket Edition, took to Twitter this morning to announce that Minecraft Pocket Edition is doing pretty well for itself:

    Minecraft Pocket Edition is the second version of the game to hit 5 million sales. The PC version passed 8 million sales back in November, and it was recently reported that the Xbox 360 version is almost there with 4.4 million copies sold. The Minecraft franchise as a whole has now surpassed 17.5 million sales, which is not too shabby for an indie developer.

    With this sales milestone behind it, what’s next for the little brother of the Minecraft franchise? Bernhardsson says that version 0.5.1 is slated for release in late January/early February. It will be the first update for Pocket Edition since Minecraft PC development head Jeb joined on as the head of development for Pocked Edition as well.

    [h/t: Joystiq]

  • Minecraft Turns 3-Years-Old And Is Still Growing

    Who knew Minecraft, first revealed back in May of 2009, would turn into the cultural phenomenon that it is today? I sure didn’t and I’m pretty sure even the game’s creators are still floored to this day that the game has become such a worldwide hit.

    As Minecraft Forums points out, the game now has 28 million registered users and almost 6 million purchases copies. Minecraft Pocket Edition now has over a million sales and the Xbox 360 version of the title broke all kinds of records when it launched last week.

    While we look back and celebrate the success of Minecraft, I think it’s more important to see what Minecraft has done for the indie movement. Notch, the creator of Minecraft, has become a worldwide celebrity. His studio, Mojang, is well respected around the world and has the potential to become the next Valve.

    Other indie efforts and their creators have been equally praised, but Notch brought that success to the player. There was no “I did this,” it was a “We did this.” There’s a reason the community around Minecraft is so strong. Mojang treated its players with respect. When a player was offering free copies of Minecraft, Notch settled it through a Quake 3 match. Even before the match started, the player took down the site offering the free copies. That’s how much respect the man has earned.

    While Notch has moved onto other projects, Minecraft will still continue evolving as a game. Mojang is continuously adding improvements while the community creates mods that cover everything from textures to gameplay enhancements.

    I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m not the biggest fan of Minecraft. It’s just not for me, but I do respect it more than any other game from the past decade. It has done more for the indie movement and gaming in general than any other title. In the past three years, it proved that graphics and scripted sequences are not what’s driving this industry. Giving players the freedom of choice to do what they want, when they want is what Minecraft accomplished and is driving the rest of the industry to that kind of freedom.

    Minecraft Forums was kind enough to dig up the very first video of Minecraft. Back then, it was just a simple tech demo that Notch had built. It wasn’t even called Minecraft, it was just simply titled, “Cave game.” Here’s the original text:

    This is a very early test of an Infiniminer clone I’m working on. It will have more resource management and materials, if I ever get around to finishing it.

    It currently runs at about 700 fps for a 256x256x64 tile map.

    As you can see, the game became so much more than what Notch originally envisioned.

    Here’s to you, Minecraft. You may be barely old enough to walk, but you’ve already traveled so far. I can’t wait to see how far you’ll get in the next three years.

  • Minecraft – Pocket Edition Sells One Million Units

    It was just a little over a month ago that Minecraft – Pocket Edition sold over 700,000 copies. People must be wanting to get their portable Minecraft on more than ever as the game has hit the million mark.

    Daniel Kaplan took to Twitter today to announce the news. One million copies sold of any game is not shabby in any sense. Considering that Minecraft – Pocket Edition was selling at the premium app price of $6.99, it’s even a larger accomplishment.

    @Kappische
    Daniel Kaplan    Minecraft – Pocket Edition has now sold more than 1 million copies. Thanks all for the support and I hope you will like the coming updates! 3 hours ago via web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

    With this milestone, it should make it more clear than ever that there’s a market for the portable version of Minecraft. While the original release only had the create mode, newer updates have been slowly adding the features of its PC/Mac counterpart.

    The last update to hit the Pocket Edition was in February. It added the survival mode among other features that fans had been requesting.

    It remains to be seen when new updates will hit Minecraft – Pocket Edition, but you can be sure we’ll let you know when they do.

    If you want to add yourself to the growing list of players and help them reach 2 million sales, you can do so here. There is also a demo available if have yet to try out this Minecraft thing everybody keeps talking about.

  • Minecraft Pocket Edition Updated On Android, Soon iOS

    Minecraft Pocket Edition for Android got an update today, adding survival mode and some other features.

    Here’s the full list of what’s new, from the Android Market:

    1. Major version 0.2.0 (first survival update)
    2. New mode! Choose between Survival and Creative mode when creating a map
    3. New blocks; most notably doors, fences and fence gates
    4. Added flying to Creative mode (double tap jump)
    5. Added mobs; sheep and zombies being the first
    6. Day and night in Survival mode, with monsters coming at night…
    7. Gather resources from nature!
    8. Tools for different purposes (digging, attacking.. shearing :))

    While the update has only come to Android devices so far, it looks like iOS won’t be far behind, as it’s only waiting on Apple’s approval.

    Minecraft designer Daniel Kaplan tweeted this morning:

    @Kappische
    Daniel Kaplan    MCPE is out for Android. For iOS we just have to wait for Apple to approve the update. Plox RT to your friends <3 7 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto