Minecraft start met beta op XBLA

De Xbox Live Arcade-versie van Minecraft zal starten met een beta. Van de PC-versie loopt er al ruim twee jaar een beta en het spel wordt al door drie miljoen gamers gespeeld. Hoelang de beta voor de Xbox 360-versie gaat duren is nog onbekend. De ontwikkeling van de game gebeurt door een andere studio.

"The way we're going to do it is similar to how we did Minecraft on the PC." aldus Persson, het Zweedse brein achter de game. "So we'll do a beta version first or something like that and then try to get feedback – find out which parts are actually fun to do, what do you like doing when playing on the console as opposed to the PC. I think there will be a big overlap in terms of both console and PC players, and they can help us figure it out."

"So the things we are starting with right now is just trying to make the game playable on 360. But the biggest challenge at the moment is figuring out the crafting, because just porting it straight out the box turns what is really fun on PC into boring data entry on a 360 pad. That's the thing we are working on right now. The Kinect feautures are going to be one of the more interesting aspects, too."

De 360-versie van het spel wordt ontwikkeld door een externe studio omdat de studio van Persson geen ervaring had met console-games. "None of us have done any console games before because it takes quite a lot of resources, which is why we're using another company called 4J, in Dundee, Scotland. They have great experience in working with Microsoft and seem to be a perfect fit for us."

De 360-versie van Minecraft staat gepland voor komende winter.

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