The hot console topic of 2017 for the games industry may have been about the mid-generation, but this year the focus is on Nintendo — specifically, the Nintendo Switch. According to the latest annual survey from the Game Developers Conference, now that the Switch is a proven hit, more developers are interested this year in creating games for Nintendo’s tablet.
Organizers polled nearly 4,000 developers, who say they have a growing interest in Nintendo’s newest console. Thirty-six percent of respondents, when asked which platforms they were the most interested in, said the Nintendo Switch. That puts the console above the Xbox One (28 percent), but still below the PS4 (39 percent) and PC platforms (59 percent).
Furthermore, developers say their games sell as well (23 percent) or better (28 percent) on the Switch as other consoles — a point worth noting since the install base for the Switch is smaller than that of its competitors. About 12 percent say they’re currently developing games for the platform (that’s up from three percent last year). And 15 percent of developers say they plan to release their next game on the platform, as opposed to five percent in 2017.
The big caveat to consider with all of this information is how new the Nintendo Switch still is compared to its competition. Whether enthusiasm for the platform will hold in the years to come remains to be seen. As of December 2017, however, more than 10 million consoles have been sold. The company continues to pursue more outlandish avenues than its competitors; just last week, Nintendo announced a series of DIY cardboard toys for the Switch.
The full results are available online. The survey also includes a few other findings to note:
Despite the controversy surrounding loot crates, 11 percent of respondents, or about one in 10 developers, are working on a game with a monetization strategy that uses loot boxes.
PC and mobile are still the most popular platforms for gamemakers, but development is slipping in the latter: 32 percent of respondents say their game is headed to mobile, vs 35 percent in 2017.
Interest in VR is waning. Respondents were asked for the third consecutive year if they believed AR/VR could be a sustainable, long-term business; 29 percent of respondents said “no,” as opposed to past years of roughly 25 percent.
Microsoft is promoting its Minecraft boss to the head of the company’s games studios. Matt Booty’s new role sees him oversee Microsoft Studios, as one of the top game executives reporting to Microsoft’s games chief Phil Spencer. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella previously promoted Phil Spencer from head of Xbox to a new role overseeing all games, associated hardware, and game strategy.
Spencer reports directly to Nadella, with Booty now reporting directly to Spencer. Both changes are designed to improve Microsoft’s games business. Microsoft has struggled to produce first-party games for its Xbox One console over the past year, after canceling Scalebound, Fable Legends, and Ion. Crackdown 3 was delayed until spring, and Microsoft even shut down Project Spark. Microsoft launched its Xbox One X game console recently without any high profile exclusive games, and it’s led to questions over the company’s games strategy.
GamesBeat reports that Booty’s new role will see Microsoft devoting more resources to its games business. Booty will be looking after Microsoft’s relationships with 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang, Rare, Turn 10 Studios, and Global Publishing. Booty first joined Microsoft back in 2010, and helped launch games for Windows phones. He’s also helped develop Xbox Live Arcade, and oversaw Minecraft maker Mojang after Microsoft acquired the company for $2.5 billion back in 2014.
Correction: Booty’s role overseeing Microsoft Studios makes him one of several executives at Microsoft that report directly to Phil Spencer, not “second only” to Spencer in the chain of command as this article originally stated.
The Minecraft Marketplace is the place to go to discover new skins, textures and worlds designed by the community, and a lot of new content has just dropped today. “If you’re a fan of either (takes deep breath) vampires, Vikings, dragons, cowboys, monkeys, outlaws, train robbers, robots, samurai, wildlife or great new mini-games, then we’re bound to have at least something for you,” the Minecraft team announced in a blog post.
Among highlights, Val’Aven from Pathway Studios is a medieval city hiding a cool treasure in a massive dungeon. As you can see in the video below, it’s also guarded by a nicely detailed dragon:
Another cool addition is the Wildlife Artic pack from Pixelheads, which brings two snow vehicles, 20 new wild winter animals (including a yeti and a mammoth) and big mountains and ice caves to explore.
There is a lot of other new content to check out on the Minecraft Marketplace including the Wild West Pack by Blockeption or The Vampire King by BlockWorks, and you can get more details on the Minecraft website. As a reminder, all content you purchase on the marketplace can be enjoyed on mobile, console and Windows 10.
Even if the populations of the US or Russia are annihilated in a nuclear apocalypse, the governments responsible for the devastation plan to fight on from vast, underground bunkers. Now, the public can peer inside the secretive complexes thanks to the efforts of arms control analysts who reconstructed these bunkers inside Minecraft.
The mistaken missile alert that sent people scurrying for cover in Hawaii last week revealed just how poorly prepared the US government is to protect the public during a nuclear attack. The government’s plans for protecting itself from a rain of thermonuclear fire are much more detailed. Using satellite images, declassified information, and a good amount of guesswork, analysts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (or MIIS) reconstructed two underground complexes: the Pentagon’s site in Pennsylvania and a bunker built by the Russian government outside Moscow.
The reconstructions are set in the low-resolution world of Minecraft to lighten the very real, and very depressing, topic of nuclear annihilation, says Jeffrey Lewis, who led the effort from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at MIIS. The aim is to draw attention to the tension between how the government downplays the risk of nuclear war and how it actually prepares for it, Lewis says. “What the bunker model shows you is that the risk of nuclear war is real enough that the United States and Russia spend billions of dollars preparing to stash away their leadership.” (Players can find an article about the bunkers and instructions for virtually accessing them posted on the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s site.)
The 650-acre Raven Rock complex is the alternative Pentagon where top defense officials plan to flee during a nuclear attack. Also known as Site R, it’s located on the Pennsylvania side of the border with Maryland — close to the presidential retreat Camp David. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, a diagram of the site has been “floating around online,” Lewis says. The team based their reconstruction on that diagram and details in journalist Garrett Graff’s book Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself — While the Rest of Us Die. Using satellite images and topography, the team located the entrances to the site and figured out the size of the mountain above it.
The team also modeled the Kosvinsky underground command facility outside of Moscow, Russia. This, too, was based on satellite images and details gleaned from declassified CIA reports. For both complexes — but especially the Russian one — the team had to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps, Lewis says. “There’s an enormous amount of guesswork. In no way, shape, or form did we make anything that we think is perfect,” he says.
There are also a few Easter eggs, including an interplanetary wormhole from the science-fiction franchise Stargate in one of the bunkers and a pen of especially virulent zombies. “But the important thing is that we wanted people to get a sense for the scale — and we think that’s probably about right,” Lewis says. The point is to remind people that as long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose a threat. “It all goes back to focusing on the changing US and Russian nuclear posture,” Lewis says. “We imagine that things are very different from the Cold War, but the bunkers suggest the opposite — they suggest that they’re exactly the same.”
Microsoft is upping its STEM game by introducing new chemistry and computer science options for Minecraft: Education Edition. Plus, the tech giant is adding more “mixed reality” products and offers for educators, including an academic HoloLens discount, to its edtech mix.
All of this news (and more) is being rolled out by Microsoft in advance of the largest education technology trade show in the world, Bett, which begins Wednesday in London.
Minecraft may be the biggest news for its legions of K-12 teacher and student fans. Starting in early February, a free Chemistry Update will be available to licensed users. The update uses game-based learning to introduce chemistry concepts.
Jay Paulus, senior director of Windows education marketing, said, “The chemistry add-in actually adds some new kinds of components to Minecraft” including a full periodic table and a “compounding table” which is similar to Minecraft’s crafting table. Students can move from building compounds to hands-on understanding of more difficult concepts, like stable isotopes.
Building compounds in Minecraft’s new Chemistry Update. (Image: Microsoft)
Minecraft: Education Edition is also getting new Microsoft MakeCode for Minecraft computer science curricula which, similar to learn-to-code packages ScratchX and Tynker, can be used in Minecraft’s Code Builder.
Paulus said the continued emphasis on Minecraft is a key part Microsoft’s overall education strategy in light of interest in STEM education. “I think it’s super important, especially for those age group of kids for which Minecraft is an excellent hook,” Paulus said. “We’ve got 250 lesson plans online already in Minecraft.”
Another area of edtech emphasis — albeit nascent, more pricey, and skewing toward older students — is virtual reality. Microsoft said starting today, it’s offering academic institutions HoloLens commercial and developer models at a 10 percent discount through the end of May. In addition, Microsoft says curriculum for Windows Mixed Reality and HoloLens headsets will be released by educational publisher Pearson starting in March, and Microsoft has a new mixed reality curriculum partnership with WGBH and NASA’s “Bringing the University of America’s Classrooms” initiative.
Among the many other Microsoft education announcements tied to the Bett event:
Office 365. Microsoft says dictation is coming to Office in February so students can write with their voice, and OneNote Class Notebook pages can be locked by teachers after they provide students with feedback (which Microsoft said is the top teacher request).
Teacher training. Free teacher training, in-person or virtual, will be available on how to use Microsoft tech in the classroom after schools purchase certain Microsoft 365 Education software licenses, not including the still-free version of Office 365 Education.
Classroom devices. Four new sub-$300 Windows 10 devices from Lenovo and JP (the latter better known in international markets), two of them under $200, are being announced at Bett to add to more than 40 different school-friendly devices available for Windows that start at $189.
Paulus said this last is important as Microsoft works to counter Google’s influence in K-12 classrooms. Recent market research has shown that while Windows is relatively strong in other countries, inexpensive Chromebooks with Google’s free G Suite for Education are dominant in the U.S., accounting for more than half of new computing device shipments into schools.
With the latest hardware announcements, Paulus said, “I would say we’re at critical mass now” in countering Google.
And what of Apple, one-time edtech darling? “We’ve added the ability to use some of the tools from mobile in Apple” iOS devices, Paulus said. But despite that nod to Apple, Paulus asserted that, “Schools more and more are choosing the Microsoft platform.”
Minecraft developer Mojang will join us on-stage at the PC Gamer Weekender to discuss future updates for the game, as well as offering insight into how features for the game are conceived and developed. The studio's lead creative designer Jens Bergensten will present at 16.00 on Sunday, 18 February at the Olympia in London. Come along, and learn more about what they've got in store for 2018.
Minecraft, of course, just had its biggest active month ever with 74 million users. Hell, you know what it is. This is a great opportunity to go behind-the-scenes with the developer, and while you're at the Weekender, you can check out many more speakers, games and booths. Tickets are available now from £12.99, and you can save an extra 20% with the voucher code PC-GAMER20.
