After launching the Minecraft Update 0.15.4 only a week ago, Mojang has confirmed the release of a new 0.16.0 Update this coming fall. Mojang’s Tommao Checchi, one of the lead developers of the Pocket Edition and 0.16.0, revealed the arrival of the new update on Twitter.
The last released update had introduced some new features like a villain’s skin pack, bug fixes and some performance tweaks. These came in addition to the Oculus Rift VR headset support for the Minecraft Pocket Edition, through which players can experience the game in virtual reality.
However this is not the first virtual reality headset for Minecraft. Samsung Gear VR had announced in April that it had virtual reality support for the game.
However, Checchi, who is busy playing Pokemon Go, did not reveal what to expect from the new edition, or when it would be released. A follower named Gerard Radwan posted a list of the possible features that can be there, and this attracted a lot of attention.
The list is detailed in nature, coming under headings like Additions, Blocks, Items, Mobs and Tweaks. However the credibility of the speculation is debatable, since there has been no official confirmation from Mojang.
What has been confirmed are new resource packs and custom resource packs and more bug fixes. Hinted at were Deep Ocean biomes, along with structures and biomes relating to this biome. In other versions of the games there may be Ocean Monuments protected by Guardians.
Another confirmation is a new Settings Screen Layout which looks simpler and has more options.
What can also be there in all probability are Polar Bears, which were revealed way back in April but were not to be included in the 0.15.0 edition.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that he equated LinkedIn with Minecraft. These two incidentally share the distinction of being the costliest financial deals that Microsoft made under his leadership (Minecraft was acquired in 2014).
According to him, those two were great businesses that were growing, and that the job at hand was to provide them with more momentum. Minecraft’s growth was to move to a console, which was provided by Microsoft.
In fact, the new edition of Minecraft would be available only in Windows 10. Similarly, the company provided LinkedIn, a professional network for the world, with the professional cloud.
LinkedIn can be very profitable if it acts as a common base for Office 365 and other professional clouds offered by Microsoft.
Thus it seems that Microsoft has come to see itself as a platform that can provide the extra edge to companies or projects having the potential for growth.
Microsoft has integrated Minecraft with HoloLens, an augmented reality headset, which enables players to look down at their environment from above and see others as tiny figures. It is different from Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Sony’s Project Morpheus.
In an article on TechCrunch, a contributor wrote about how Minecraft can predict the future of collaborative work, with the positive impact that it is creating on kids at present.
Also, the immense value of social gaming, breaking the stereotype of the introverted and self-obsessed gamer, has been highlighted by Alex Leavitt, a researcher at Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California.
Leavitt says that social gaming not only exposes the players to new experiences and makes them ready to deal with new situations, but also improves humanity as a whole.
Minecraft is essentially a game most popular among children in the age group of 10-15 and involves building whole worlds with a few simpler categories of digital bricks. With their own Minecraft accounts, players from any part of the world can collaborate on each others’ works to create whole new worlds.