• Microsoft has revealed plans to bring the Xbox Live online video game platform to the Nintendo Switch, Apple’s iOS, and Android devices.
• Details were included in the description of an upcoming panel hosted by Microsoft at the 2019 Game Developers Conference.
• Expanding Xbox Live services would allow gamers to stay connected regardless of whether they’re using a video game console or a smartphone, which has been a longstanding barrier in the industry.

Microsoft has revealed plans to bring its Xbox Live video gaming platform to the Nintendo Switch, Apple’s iOS, and Android devices, an effort that will connect players across different devices and bring Xbox games to a new audience.

The tech giant’s plans were revealed ahead of the 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC), an annual gathering of video game professionals happening in San Francisco next month. Microsoft is hosting a GDC panel titled “Xbox Live: Growing & Engaging Your Gaming Community Across Platforms,” and the panel description on the GDC website teased specific details about Microsoft’s Xbox Live gaming service expanding to new platforms.

The description has since been scrubbed from the website, but Windows Central has published the full text of the panel description.

“Xbox Live is about to get MUCH bigger. Xbox Live is expanding from 400M gaming devices and a reach to over 68M active players to over 2B devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK,” the description for the GDC panel read. “Get a first look at the SDK to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs.”

Expanding Xbox Live services could be the spark of a shift in the gaming industry. Here’s why it’s meaningful:

Xbox Live is Microsoft’s online gaming platform.

Xbox Live encompasses the online components of Microsoft’s video game services. Players use Xbox Live to connect and play games together, download new releases, build their own friend lists, voice chat, and share messages and video clips. Until now, Xbox Live has mostly been exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console and Windows computers.

The decision to bring Xbox Live to competing devices is a major change for the video game industry, where console makers are often battling for exclusivity and looking for new ways to get gamers invested in their hardware. But recently, Xbox has shown that it’s willing to work alongside its competition.

Three months after tapping Peter Sollett to direct, Warner Bros. has settled on a new release date for “Minecraft.” The video game adaptation will now hit theaters 03/04/22.

Based on the globally popular video game in which players craft buildings, weapons and even environments in a sandbox world, the film will follow a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers who, after the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.

Vertigo’s Roy Lee and Jon Berg are producing, with Jill Messick, who died in February 2018, still credited as a producer. Video game developer Mojang, which created the game, is also on board as a producer. And Jon Spaihts will serve as executive producer.

Warner Bros. acquired film rights to the game in 2014, but has seen talent and filmmakers come and go since. The film was previously set to be released in May 2019, but last year Rob McElhenney dropped out of the project as writer and director, and the film was taken off the release schedule.

Since its commercial release in November 2011, “Minecraft” has sold more than 154 million copies on PC, video game consoles and mobile platforms, and is considered the second-best-selling game of all time.

In this edition of the WIRE Buzz, that Minecraft film (finally) gets a release date while Big Hero 6: The Series (quickly) lands a third season and a kinky horror podcast makes its way to the small screen.

First up, we’ve got some good news and bad news for those of you who’ve been waiting for that Minecraft movie. The good news? It now has an official release date! The bad news? It’s nearly three years from now.

Video game developer Mojang, which created the video game and will co-produce the film for Warner Bros., has just announced that the Minecraft movie will be released on March 4, 2022.

“Does it sound distant? We beg to differ!” reads the announcement. “It’s only 1053 days. Or about 34 months, or 150 weeks, or a million and a half minutes. Not that we’re counting, of course.”

The story will focus on a teenage girl and her unlikely group of fellow adventurers who must save their blocky Overworld after the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction.

After originally being announced in 2014, the Minecraft movie finally locked down its director, Peter Sollett of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlistand Raising Victor Vargas fame, earlier this year. Let us know in the comments if you’re excited to find out his take on the uber-popular game.

Up next, the Disney Channel clearly likes Big Hero 6: The Series (or rather, it sees that its subscribers like the series), as it just ordered a third season ahead of the show’s Season 2 premiere, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The show has also brought a bunch of special guest stars on board for its second season, including Nestor Carbonell as San Fransokyo’s newest police chief, Chief Cruz; Isabella Gomez as Hiro’s new friend Megan; Ben Feldman as Liv Amara’s assistant, Chris; Will Friedle as Krei’s geeky scientist, Ian; Jane Lynch and Timothy Simons as grandmother/grandson supervillain duo Supersonic Sue and Supersonic Stu; Jessica Paré as acrobatic thief Sirque; and Horatio Sanz as Mexican wrestler El Fuego.

Based on the Oscar-winning film from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Big Hero 6: The Series continues the adventures of 14-year-old tech genius Hiro, his robot buddy Baymax, and their friends Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Go Go, and Fred as they form the legendary superhero team Big Hero 6 and protect their city from scientifically enhanced villains.

The show’s voice cast includes Maya Rudolph as Aunt Cass; Ryan Potter as Hiro; Scott Adsit as Baymax; Jamie Chung as Go Go; Alan Tudyk as Alistair Krei; Khary Payton as Wasabi; Genesis Rodriguez as Honey Lemon; Brooks Wheelan as Fred; David Shaughnessy as Heathcliff; and the late Stan Lee as Fred’s dad. Its recurring guest voice cast includes Jenifer Lewis as Professor Granville; Haley Tju as Karmi; Andrew Scott as Obake; and Andy Richter as Globby.

And finally, Deadline is reporting that Blumhouse Television has acquired the rights to Gimlet Pictures’ horror podcast The Horror of Dolores Roach to develop as a scripted TV series.

The Horror of Dolores Roach is a Sweeney Todd-esque story written and directed by Aaron Mark about a woman named Dolores Roach (natch) who returns to her New York City neighborhood after spending 16 years in prison. But upon her return, she discovers that her boyfriend is missing, and her family is long gone. On the quasi-bright side, her old stoner friend, Luis, lets Dolores give massages in the basement apartment under his dilapidated empanada shop.

But when her newfound stability is threatened, “Magic Hands Dolores” is driven to extremes to survive — and things, not surprisingly, get dark.

Mark will write the series adaptation and co-executive-produce. Daphne Rubin-Vega, for whom Mark specifically wrote the podcast, will serve as a consulting producer.

Mojang has set a date for the premiere of the Minecraft movie — and it’s still almost three years away

In a blog post, Mojang set a specific day for the the film’s first screening: March 2, 2022, a commitment that is still almost three years away.

This apparent display of certainty is striking, because the Minecraft movie was first confirmed back in February 2014 by the game’s original creator, Markus “Notch” Persson. So much time has passed since then that Microsoft has now erased all mentions of Persson from Minecraft’s virtual world.

One consistent detail is that the movie remains with its original studio partner, Warner Bros. However, it will now be directed by Peter Sollett — who is perhaps best known for Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist, which was released in 2008 — and not Rob McElhenney, who Mojang selected in July 2015.

Mojang described the movie’s premise as: “The story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers. After the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, they must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.”

The company, which is owned by Microsoft, also seemed very aware of just how far away the premiere date is, joking that it has “only 1053 days” to finish the project.

“Not that we’re counting, of course,” Mojang stated. “Besides, it turns out that making a live-action, full-length feature film is really complicated!”

Videogame sensation Minecraft is on its way to the movies, with a March 2022 date announced and a director chosen. 

Since its unassuming debut in 2009, Minecraft has gone from a free PC game to an international merchandising sensation. 

It’s available on every modern console, as well as Android and iOS devices, backpacks, pyjamas, plushies and pencil cases. 

After a story-driven spin-off of the creative construction game expanded across computers, consoles, and even onto Netflix via a special interactive edition, Minecraft is being prepared for theatrical release on March 4, 2022 in US theatres. 

The film will follow a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers, the official Minecraft blog announced, all set on saving the beautiful, blocky Overworld from the malevolent, destructive Ender Dragon. 

Warner Bros is overseeing development and director Peter Sollett is also on board, having helmed high school band comedy drama Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. 

He’s also directed episodes of The Path and this year’s NBC New York apartment block drama The Village, and wrote his first feature, Long Way Home, something that he’s also doing for Minecraft the First Movie. 

He’s worked with some of Hollywood’s big names, too, having directed Michael Cera and Kat Dennings in Nick & Norah and then Julianne Moore, Ellen Page and Steve Carell in Freeheld. 

Vu Bui, COO at Microsoft-owned Minecraft studio Mojang, is assigned to the project as one of its producers, along with Roy Lee, whose credits range from The Lego Movie and How to Train Your Dragon franchises to It and The Ring as well another upcoming videogame adaptation in Just Cause and a remake of Fortnite and PUBG genre inspiration Battle Royale. – AFP Relaxnews
Read more at https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2019/04/19/minecraft-the-first-movie-digs-out-march-2022-date/#2LS6AIyXsj584Xc0.99

Across all platforms, Minecraft – and all of its various editions – has sold over 150 million copies, and a tracker on the official site shows PC sales are now over 30 million.

A tracker on the Minecraft website for PC sales of the game hit 30 million this week and it’s still rising (via GamesIndustry.biz).

Back in 2014, console sales of the game surpassed PC and Mac figures, and just a year later, Minecraft Pocket Edition on Android and iOS sold 30 million units.

In October 2018, Microsoft’s head of Minecraft, Helen Chiang, told Business Insiderthat the game had accumulated over 90 million monthly active players, and had sold over 150 million units across all platforms.

Last week, Minecraft update 19w13a removed all references to Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson from the game’s splash screens, most likely due to the content of his Twitter account.

If you’re looking for a Minecraft-like experience to dip your toe into, you can give Boundless a whirl. It’s a cross between No Man’s Sky and Minecraft, and we got Simon Miller to sit down and play it, and he loved it.

Just kidding. He hated it, just like everything else we make him play for your entertainment.

If you want Minecraft specific content, then check out our round-up of the best Minecraft seeds you need to play right now.

• Nintendo and Microsoft are direct competitors in the video game business.
• But the two companies have been working together in recent years, and the depth of that relationship has grown substantially in the last 12 months.
• Between a push into cross-play gaming and ongoing “Minecraft” support on Nintendo platforms, it’s clear that walls are breaking down in the video game industry.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Nintendo and Microsoft directly compete in the video game business, so why are they becoming so friendly?

The answer is surprisingly simple: Because they’ve realized how mutually beneficial it is to work together while Sony’s PlayStation — the sales leader by a longshot — looks like an old coot.

The last 12 months in particular have seen the two companies repeatedly come together on major initiatives.

Here’s a walkthrough of their blossoming relationship:

1. “Minecraft” is where this all started.

Microsoft has owned “Minecraft” since 2014 — the result of a historic $2.5 billion acquisition deal. But despite that high price tag, Microsoft didn’t lock away the game as an exclusive.

Instead, the game has remained on nearly every platform — with ongoing support from Microsoft.

It was the first sign of Microsoft moving past the old dividing lines in the video game business that traditionally kept certain games locked to one platform or another.

So it used to go: “Halo” is only on Xbox consoles, “Uncharted” is only on PlayStation consoles, and “Mario” is only on Nintendo consoles.

But “Minecraft” represented an easing off of that old standard. Microsoft makes “Minecraft” for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows 10, OS X, iOS, and Android.

Moreover, Microsoft used “Minecraft” as a means of breaking down those barriers ever further: The “Better Together” update introduced the ability for “Minecraft” players across all platforms to play together — including Nintendo’s Switch.

2. “Better Together.”

Games like “Call of Duty,” “Overwatch,” and “Minecraft” are functionally identical across platforms. Why shouldn’t I be able to play “Overwatch” on Xbox One with my friend on PlayStation 4?

The reason, of course, is business.

Sony’s in the lead by a large margin, and has no real incentive — financially — to work with Microsoft on making games work between PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

But Nintendo? That’s a different story.

As of June 2018, Nintendo Switch “Minecraft” players are able to play with their friends on Xbox One and every other “Minecraft” platform…except for PlayStation 4.

Nintendo and Microsoft even released a commercial together:

Sony has since relented a bit on the concept of cross-play, and nowallows “Fortnite” on PS4 to work with every other version of the game. It has yet to give in on “Minecraft.”

3. Xbox Live on Nintendo Switch.

Through “Minecraft,” Microsoft implemented a limited form of its Xbox Live service on the Nintendo Switch. After launching the game, you could sign in with your Xbox Live account.

But Microsoft is taking that another full step forward with outright Xbox Live integration on a system level for the Nintendo Switch. That means you could earn Achievements, access your Xbox Live friends list, and other functionality tied to Xbox Live.

The company announced as much back in March at the annual Game Developers Conference:

“Xbox Live is about to get MUCH bigger,” a panel description said. “Xbox Live is expanding from 400M gaming devices and a reach to over 68M active players to over 2B devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK. Get a first look at the [software development kit] to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs.”

This is the kind of move that can only happen with cooperation from Nintendo — notably, Sony’s PlayStation 4 is absent from Microsoft’s list.

But why would Nintendo allow Xbox Live on the Nintendo Switch? One particularly notable reason is that Microsoft created a gold standard in online game with Xbox Live. If Microsoft’s willing to implement Xbox Live for various games, it offers Nintendo Switch a suite of services — voice chat, friends list, achievements, and more — that are otherwise less great on Nintendo’s console.

Microsoft gets to sign up new Xbox Live users, and Nintendo gets a well-respected service with limited control on its popular game platform — it’s a win-win.

4. Microsoft is publishing games other than “Minecraft” on the Switch, like “Hellblade,” and “Cuphead” is no longer an Xbox exclusive.

Microsoft spent billions to acquire “Minecraft,” only to continue supporting it as a multi-platform game.

Though billions presumably weren’t spent on British studio Ninja Theory, Microsoft did indeed acquire the company not so long ago — which is why it’s a bit strange to see one of Ninja Theory’s games, “Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice,” announced as coming to the Nintendo Switch.

The same could be said for “Cuphead,” a major Xbox exclusive game that was at least partially funded by Microsoft — it’s headed to the Nintendo Switch in the near future.

Both are signs of Microsoft’s continued flexibility with Xbox when it comes to Nintendo’s platforms.

5. Microsoft’s Netflix-like Game Pass service is rumored to come to the Switch.

One of Microsoft’s biggest plays in the last few years has been Xbox Game Pass, a monthly subscription service that offers access to a growing library of Xbox games.

The service has been a big hit with Xbox owners — every game published by Microsoft, for example, is available on Game Pass at launch. The next major “Halo” or “Forza” game will show up on Game Pass on day one. That’s a pretty major move!

And it sounds like that service could end up on Nintendo’s Switch console in some form or another. Rumors point to the service potentially coming to the Nintendo Switch — albeit as a part of Microsoft’s still-in-development game streaming service, currently known as “Project xCloud.”

Neither Microsoft nor Nintendo responded to these rumors back when they were reported in February.

• One of the biggest games in the world is being turned into a feature film: The “Minecraft” movie is expected to arrive in 2022.
• The movie was announced way back in 2016, originally with a planned 2019 launch.
• The movie follows “the story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers.” Presumably they will do some mining and some crafting along the way.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The biggest game in the world is becoming a movie — but not justyet.

A film version of “Minecraft” is planned for release in 2022, according to Microsoft, and it’s got the director of “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” behind the helm, Peter Sollett.

But what is a “Minecraft” movie even about? We’re talking about a game where you mine resources and build stuff with those resources — there’s not much of a narrative to hang your hat on.

According to Microsoft, the “Minecraft” movie follows, “the story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers.”

More specifically, the plot revolves around a “malevolent Ender Dragon” that’s out to destroy the “Overworld” — the name for the main world in “Minecraft.” It’s up to that group of friends to stop the dragon and save their world.

It sounds like things are still pretty early in production, despite plans for this movie being originally announced way back in 2016.

Outside of the director, general plot, and release date — March 4, 2022 specifically — it remains to be seen what type of movie “Minecraft” becomes. One thing’s for sure: By the time we find out, it’ll be a whole new decade.

Get the latest Microsoft stock price here.

Many people around the world watched in sorrow as France’s most prominent cathedral, Notre Dame, was significantly damaged by fire last night. Luckily many of the building’s artifacts and artworks were able to be rescued, and the cathedral’s main structure was saved despite the loss of the roof and spire. While the French government has pledged to rebuild the cathedral, the Minecraftcommunity is making sure the cathedral lives on in the virtual world with many community members paying tribute. The cathedral has been a source of inspiration for many players, and some shared their replica builds to make sure the cathedral lives on in the game:

u/JohnS1212_:

u/Treaden_corns:

u/Glasenator:

People around the world have pledged to help to rebuild the cathedral, but while the damage is still being fully assessed, tributes continue to pour in from all directions. The Minecraft community will continue to remember the building in their own way.

We’ve got the full list of Minecraft achievements – check the list for guides to unlocking them.

Microsoft has announced plans to release its upcoming Minecraft movie in 2022, partnering with Warner Bros. for a live-action feature based on the hit voxel-adventure game. While initially slated to launch on May 24, 2019, the three-year delay follows some turbulent years, now securing new director Peter Sollett.

Taking to the Minecraft blog, franchise creator Mojang has committed to a firm launch for the movie, slated for March 4, 2022. Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Rob McElhenney has departed his directorial role, succeeded by Peter Sollett, best known for 2008 comedy-drama, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Microsoft has also provided a brief synopsis of the live-action project, as detailed below:

So, what do you have to look forward to, roughly 25,000 hours from now? Well, as you devour your movie snack of choice (we like a suspicious stew with a side of square watermelon), we’ll tell you the story of a teenage girl and her unlikely group of adventurers. After the malevolent Ender Dragon sets out on a path of destruction, they must save their beautiful, blocky Overworld.

While Minecraft’s mindshare has fallen in recent years, the blocky-builder remains a monolith for Microsoft. “Minecraft: Story Mode” has already experimented with a deeper story-driven experience, while upcoming dungeon-crawler “Minecraft: Dungeons” aims to spin the seriesinto a new action-oriented direction.

In the meantime, Minecraft just hit Xbox Game Pass, the Netflix-style subscription service for Xbox One gaming. Priced at a $10 flat monthly fee, the service grants access to over 200 titles in early 2019.