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E-Line Media and Upper One Games’ Never Alone will not be releasing tomorrow on Xbox One as originally planned. Instead, the developers have announced that the puzzle-platformer will arrive …
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Earlier this year Microsoft acquired indie developer Mojang for $2.5 billion. It was a big move, and it left many fans wondering how it might effect Mojang’s hit game Minecraft. In a recent interview with IGN, Xbox head Phil Spencer talked about the desire to meet the needs of the game’s community. He said that Minecraft 2 may not make the most sense, and his words were followed by every fan of the game breathing a sigh of relief. Minecraft already does what it was created to do perfectly, why would it ever need a sequel?

Why it works so well

From the beginning, Minecraft was a game all about building. Not only was the gameplay about letting you create whatever you wanted, but the game itself was designed to be built up into something better. If you look at its original release and look at it now, it’s a very different game. Thanks to Mojang’s constant support with free updates, the game was able to constantly grow into something more grand. Content is constantly being added, and bugs are always being squashed. A sequel could never improve on the Minecraft formula, because its formula is all about improvement. A sequel would be a radical shift away from the pre-established normal of the game, changing it from a single evolving entity to a standard game series with annual static sequels.

Now that Microsoft owns the game, the company’s best course of action to keep customers happy would just be to keep the updates rolling. Minecraft is now on more platforms than ever, catering to millions of players. Everyone who has purchased the game bought it knowing it would receive updates, that the developers would be adding more fun content. It’s essentially an Everlasting Gobbstopper: for a one-time price you get something you can never finish and that will remain good for years to come. If a sequel comes along it will make the original go stale, forever stopping progress in your old worlds. It’d be like a new Skylanders game that wasn’t compatible with last year’s figures, or a new box of Legos that didn’t fit your old pieces. New content shouldn’t intend to be a rigid standalone package; it should be an addition to the big Minecraft toy box.

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In case you missed the recent news, the first Microsoft Garage title has been rather sneakily released into the wild as a free download on Xbox One. Voice Commander is a single-screen shooter in the style of the arcade classic Asteroids, with a few notable twists which between them make the most of the Kinect technology and add an additional layer of strategy. Players are invited to defend their home planet from wave after wave of alien attackers, whilst the titular voice commands are used to deploy defensive structures in specific quadrants or to deploy smart bombs and other secondary weapons.

Microsoft Garage games are made by various Microsoft Studio employees in their spare time, and Voice Commander has set the bar pretty high considering that it’s free to download. Currently, it can only be located via a Bing search on your Xbox One, and your console must also be set to the US region. Non-US players can still download and play Voice Commander, but will need to change their home region to US, download the game and then change back.

For more on Voice Commander, check out the gameplay video after the jump.

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A new month is almost upon us, which can only mean it’s time to find out what’s coming up for Games with Gold. Xbox One owners will get to Volgarr the …
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Costume Quest is back for more tricks and treats. The sequel, which is available now for Xbox 360 and Xbox One, takes the framework of the original game and builds …
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Here’s some treats that you don’t have to dress up for — Minecraft has new texture packs available. Spook your world with the Halloween texture pack, available now for free. There is …
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This week’s schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, October 29th @ 9:00 pm (CST) – Defense Grid 2 with Marshall.

Thursday October 30th @ 9:00 pm (CST) – Warframe with …
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Xbox One is gearing up for a big holiday season, as Microsoft has revealed a big discount on the console. Starting November 2 and lasting until January 3, 2015 all Xbox One bundles will be available for $50 off their original MSRPs. Kinect bundles will now cost $449, and Kinect-less bundles will go for $349. Most major retailers will feature the promotion, including Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Microsoft Stores, Target, Toys ‘R Us and Walmart.

Three special edition Xbox One bundles will be available for the holidays, all of which will receive the $50 discount. Starting November 2 the Assassin’s Creed bundle  will be available, which includes Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin’s Creed Unity. The Kinect version of the bundle also includes Dance Central Spotlight. The Sunset Overdrive bundle includes a digital download of the game along with a special white console and white controller. For $449 you can get the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare bundle, including a custom controller, a copy of the game, and a console packed with a 1TB hard drive.

To see everything Xbox One has to offer this holiday, check out the video after the jump.

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When Microsoft announced in September that it would acquire Minecraft developer Mojang for the price of $2.5 billion, no one outside the company seemed to be able to agree on what it should do with its new asset. Many gamers, journalists and analysts did agree on one thing, however: a sequel probably isn’t a good idea. Microsoft apparently isn’t ready to prove them wrong.

Speaking in an IGN podcast, Xbox head Phil Spencer insisted that his company knows it must first satisfy the needs of the current Minecraft community before expanding the franchise. That means that a sequel to the almost inconceivably popular world-building game may not be in the plans.

“I don’t know if Minecraft 2, if that’s the thing that makes the most sense,” said Spencer. “The community around Minecraft is as strong as any community out there. We need to meet the needs and the desires of what the community has before we get permission to go off and do something else. It doesn’t mean that everything we’re going to do is going to map to 100 percent of their acceptance, because I don’t know if there is any topic where 100 percent of people agree. But we look at Job 1 is to go out and meet the needs of the Minecraft community first, and then we can think about ways that we can actually help grow it. That’s our sole focus.”

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The December update for the Xbox One will not contain the highly anticipated screenshot feature. Xbox head Phil Spencer has told IGN that gamers should set their expectations appropriately for …
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