In a recent announcement, 4JStudios revealed that they’re working on a version of the “Skyrim”-themed DLC pack for “Minecraft” for the PlayStation, aiming to release it soon. The pack, which came out on the Xbox 360 last year, introduces various new skins, textures and UI elements that match Bethesda’s “Skyrim”. Now, the content is going to be available to PlayStation owners as well, although the exact release date isn’t yet known – developers have confirmed that it’s not this month, however.
The news was confirmed by Mojang, who are now under new leadership at Microsoft. The company has been keeping somewhat quiet lately, as they have been in the process of reorganizing their work after the acquisition. It’s not known how Minecraft is going to be developed in the future or what Microsoft have planned for it, and it’s understandable that Mojang might want to avoid revealing too much about that too soon. The company’s original founder, Markus Persson, has decided to leave so he can continue making games for fun. Persson has been uninvolved with the Minecraft project for some time now, after handing it off to his colleagues several months ago.
So far, the company hasn’t announced any major changes to the game, but their purchase was a very serious investment, one that would take a long time to pay off if the game isn’t monetized in additional ways. Fans have been speculating – and worrying – about what Microsoft could potentially do to make more money from the game. There is a risk of seeing gameplay-changing DLC packages in the future, although the company has stated that they’re trying to preserve the spirit and integrity of the game as much as possible.
Minecraft became partially known for its ongoing free updates, which often included lots of new content and features. A model like this could prove unsustainable in the long run for Microsoft, so the company might want to try a different approach. Mojang were in the process of exploring “Realms” before their acquisition, a service which allows players to rent their own multiplayer servers. This is one way in which Microsoft could earn money from the game, although it brings the possibility that regular server hosting may become impossible in the future.
Last but not least, there have been rumors that Microsoft are already preparing a brand new “Minecraft” game, starting from scratch instead of trying to base it on the old codebase. This could prove to be a good move, as one of the major issues with “Minecraft” has been related to its performance. The game is notoriously slow due to being written in Java, and it has been commonly suggested that porting it to a language like C or C++ would bring significant performance improvements.