mojang

Get to buildin’ for some swag!
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We are introducing a very special feature here on XBLA Fans. Each Monday for the foreseeable future, we will be showcasing a community member’s world. If you are interested in being …
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The 4J Studios port of Mojang’s world-building PC title,

Minecraft for Xbox Live Arcade will be getting its first free update in just a couple weeks, Roger Carpenter, lead producer of the fastest-selling game to ever hit the platform, has informed XBLA Fans. Digital crafters can look forward to what has been dubbed an interim update fixing a number of bugs when it arrives. Carpenter confirmed that dummy glitches, sleeping, clay issues and more will be remedied when it goes live.

A more robust update (1.7.3) will then follow at an undetermined date in July. Designed as the first in a series of post-release downloads to bring the port up to speed with the PC version, 1.7.3 will not include any additional Achievements due to it being free. (Those players who feel the itch to bump up their Gamerscore need not necessarily worry: traditional Xbox Live DLC with extra Achievements is being considered for sometime down the line.)

 
[springboard type=”video” id=”496935″ player=”xbla001″ width=”640″ height=”400″ ] Unfortunately the size of the maps (1024 by 1024 blocks) is not set to be bumped up yet. The reason, says Carpenter, is that the game’s creators want to make sure they have sufficient room to expand the game as it grows. Any PC bugs that were not fixed until later updates will not be taken care of with 1.7.3, but, as mentioned, the plan is to eventually update Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition enough so that it matches up with the PC version.

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Microsoft, in response to a deluge of complaints from SDTV owners unable to play splitscreen Minecraft, has revised the game’s overview on the Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace, reports …
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In an effort to bring more video to the site and to reinstall our community focus, we are bringing Thursday Night Streaming to the fold. Our video guru, Shawn …
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It’s dangerous to go alone! Read this guide to save yourself some anguish.
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The Xbox 360 port of Minecraft was the most popular XBLA game during the one week period beginning May 7, according to Major Nelson. Minecraft also pulled into …
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Update: Polytron, following up on Mojang’s reporting of Minecraft figures based off of Xbox Live leaderboards, tapped Microsoft on the shoulder and questioned them as to whether or not the leaderboards are a legitimate gauge for sales numbers. As it turns out, just as the Fez developer had earlier alleged, they are not. “Hey so, Microsoft got back to us about sale[s] figures,” the studio tweeted. “Turns out the leaderboards ARE inaccurate!”

Quickly following that news was another statement by the dev elucidating that Microsoft showed no favoritism towards Mojang in terms of handing out sales data. But that doesn’t mean the studio believes the entire playing field is even. Earlier, Polytron expressed its discontent over Minecraft being granted the ability to receive free post-release content. Sticking to its guns, Polytron stated that favoritism was shown by the publisher in the way of “the free updates.”

Still, Poly, in a tweet directed at the media, called upon caps lock to underscore its belief that Microsoft’s actions were “NOT A SCANDAL.” It should also be noted that Polytron extended public congratulations to Markus Persson for having a successful launch on XBLA. Further details can be found in the primary story below.

Original Story: An hour was all it took. Within 60 minutes of Swedish developer Mojang’s XBLA port of its mega-popular PC world-building title Minecraft releasing yesterday, a profit had been turned. Studio owner Markus “Notch” Persson relayed the news over Twitter earlier today: “Well then. Saw the official sales numbers for the first 24 hours of Minecraft Xbox 360, and it’s very, very good. Profitable in an hour.”

After selling in excess of five million copies to date over on the PC, according to IGN, Minecraft managed to smash “all previous digital sales records” on the Xbox 360, Microsoft revealed in a statement that surfaced shortly after Persson’s tweet. Microsoft, who published the Arcade version of the game, said that no other release in the history of the platform had garnered as many sales as Mojang’s debut effort did in its first 24 hours of availability. The publisher declined, however, to identify just how many individual sales that record equated to.

Yet not everyone was silent on that matter. After having some public discussion over Microsoft’s policies regarding the divulging of precise sales numbers with Fez developer Polytron, Persson gave a ballpark figure. “It seems it sold over 400k copies in 24 [hours],” he tweeted. The creative brain behind Minecraft apparently had to rely on leaderboard participation in order to extrapolate that number, a method which he admitted “might be off.” If his calculations are correct, that would mean the port, developed in part by 4J Studios, has already brought in more than $8 million USD in revenue.

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Folks who can’t pony up the dough for an HDTV are up in arms over the lack of splitscreen  gameplay in Minecraft. It’s not broken or anything–at least that’s what they say. But SDTV players are entirely locked out of any splitscreen games, the option only available if your console is hooked up to some sort of HD output, Kotaku reports. It’s left some players on the Xbox.com forums completely clueless as to the problem, while others up in arms. It’s something that most reviews, including our own, didn’t catch–so yes, SDTV gamers are few and far between.

We’ve spoken our distaste about this recently, but this goes far beyond not being able to read text. This is locking players out of major features, players who spent money with no warning they’d be locked out. Players who are confused and mad. Take a look at just a few of the complaints below.

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