4J Studios

It would seem that falsely predicting the arrival of The End is something reserved not strictly for ancient Mayan civilizations, but also for modern video game developers. Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition developer 4J Studios responded to fan questions on Twitter yesterday about the impending arrival of the floating island known as “The End” is actually not impending at all: the island will not be patched into the XBLA version of the game along with Title Update 8 (TU8), as the developer said it would back in December.

The reason for the delay is that the studio has been forced to dedicate time to creating fixes for bugs that popped up in Title Update 7 (TU7), which released on December 19. 4J tweeted that its assertion that The End would come to XBLA as part of the next title update was made “before we knew we were releasing a bug fix update for TU7. The bug fix update will be TU8, so The End will be later.”

Some of the bugs that will be addressed include one the “Kick Player” bug that freezes the player’s Xbox when the host tries to kick him or her and one that mistakenly prompts players that they cannot sleep in beds when monsters are around.

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It looks like the holidays are coming early for Minecraft fans! Microsoft Studios has officially announced the release date for the next Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition update over at PlayXBLA. …
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The new Festive Skin Pack releases tomorrow for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition and Microsoft have provided fans with a sneak preview of what to expect on its PlayXBLA Blog. …
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[springboard type=”video” id=”620081″ player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”360″ ]

Last week, the Minecraft XBLA Team held a Q & A session at MineCon in Paris, France. Among some of the topics discussed at the …
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• Mojang published official sales numbers for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition as part of Gamasutra’s monthy Xbox Live Arcade sales analysis, which derives numbers from the game’s leaderboards. It currently sits at 4.47 million copies sold in just a bit over a reported time of seven months. For those who like breakdowns that’s roughly 640,000 sales per month, although in reality sales were much higher earlier on and have dropped somewhat of late.
• PlayXBLA announced the details for Minecraft‘s seventh title update. On the table are the majority of updates from the Java 1.0.1 version, minus The End. Breeding, brewing and baby animals are just a few things included in the update. 4J Studios stated via their Twitter account that The End still needs work, and that it will be part of title update 8. For a full list, hit the jump.
• Daniel Kaplan of Mojang tweeted that over 1 billion worlds have been started in Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition.

Sources: Gamasutra, PlayXBLA

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Weekly Roundup compiles all the biggest news stories, reviews and features from the week into one handy post on the weekends.

A bit of a slow week due to the holidays, but it’s hard to complain with a week of great XBLA sales. XBLA Fans wants to know if you picked up anything good during the holiday deals.

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A new map for Toylogic’s free-to-play adventure title Happy Wars, called Zodiac, released Nov. 16. PlayXBLA also has tips to ensure players are seeing all maps available while matchmaking.
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What’s better than new Minecraft skins? Halloween-themed Minecraft skins, of course. Oh, better than that? Halloween-themed Minecraft skins for charity? No? Halloween-themed Minecraft skins for FOUR charities?

That’s exactly what’s on the table in this, the final week, of Crafting for a Cause — the Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition event where all proceeds of the limited edition Halloween Skin Pack go directly to charity. Our friends over at PlayXBLA want you to know that Microsoft, 4J Studios and Mojang have selected four great causes, to which they’ll donate the full 160 MSP ($2) value of every pack sold.

In an amazing show of support, the Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition community has already purchased over $700,000 worth of the Halloween Skin Pack in the three short weeks this event has been running, but there’s still time to donate/get-your-hands-on-these-exclusive-skins. Each skin was handcrafted by the hardworking folks at some of the best development studios around, including: 343 Industries, Twisted Pixel, The Behemoth, Climax Studios, Rare, Tequila Works, Mojang and 4J Studios themselves.

In order to whet your appetite, XBLA Fans has lovingly compiled all 55 skins into easy to digest, alphabetically ordered slides for you to peruse at your leisure. Hit the jump for the goods. If even one of these great skins catches your eye, please consider purchasing the pack for 160 MSP before it’s too late! Crafting for a cause will continue to collect contributions until Monday, November 26. You really can make a difference!

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Responding to a fan question on Twitter, Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition developer 4J Studios confirmed early this morning that it has gotten the ball rolling on texture pack …
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As reported last week, Minecraft Xbox 360 Edition was scheduled to receive a healthy dose of fixes, changes and additions in the form of a title update. Today, Major Nelson, …
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